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FRAGMENTS FROM REIMARU8

CONSISTINO OP

BRIEF CRITICAL REMARKS ON THE OBJECT OF

JESUS AND HIS DISCIPLES AS SEEN IN

THE NEW TESTAMENT.

Translatei>;,fiiom ,:^he Geeman op

ar EV LESSING.

EDITED BY THE

REV. CHARLES VOYSEY, B.A.,

OF ST. EDMOKD HALL, OXFOED ; FORMERLY VICAR OP HEALADGH,

YORKSHIRE.

LONDON AND EDINBUEGH:

WILLIAMS AND NORGATE,15, Henrietta Street, Cotent Gaeden, "W.C. ; and

20, South Frederick Street, EDiNBrEGH.

1879.

Ji

prrc~rTb.

y</yi^r^^.LONDON:

WEHTHEIMEK, LEA AND CO,, PHINTEES,

CIJSCUS PLACE, FINSEURT CIRCUS.

PREFACE BY THE EDITOR.

The name of Reimarus is scarcely known in tliis

country beyond a yery select circle of English

students, while his writings, so far as I know,

have never been popularly known, nor frequently

quoted by English commentators. The reason for

this will perhaps become apparent to any one who

will take the trouble, or give himself the pleasure,

of reading this book. Reimarus is too thorough,

too uncompromising, too faithful to his task, to suit

the present attitude of mind and heart towards the

central figure of the orthodox religion.

The following pages have been translated

—

truly as a work and labour of love—^from Les-

sing's Fragments hy the Unknown of Wolfenbiittel.

The translator kindly permits me to share the

honour of presenting these Fragments to the notice

of English readers. With the actual work of trans-

lation I have had nothing to do; my part has

been only editorial, and limited to a few modifi-

cations of expression, which have not altered the

sense.

IV PREFACE.

The method, of criticism adopted by Reimarus

commends itself most of all by its extreme lucidity

and fidelity to the Gospel records. He teaches in such

a manner as to reach even the most untutored mind

;

and so far is he from forcing upon us his own inter-

pretations that he habitually makes the New Testa-

ment speak for itself, and every charge which he has

been compelled to bring against the founders of

Christianity is sustained and proved by their own

testimony. I have not yet seen in the English lan-

guage a work on this subject carrying such irre-

sistible force of argument.

A complaint might be made that the present

work is, as its title declares, only fragmentary ; but

although a complete work from the master hand of

Eeimarus would doubtless have been of very great

value, yet there is an advantage, not to be despised,

in brevity and conciseness, especially when the

subject itself is more calculated to weary than to

refresh the mind. These paragraphs from the pen

of the great German thinker are each and all well-

aimed and powerful blows, and he must be a brave

man who will attempt to place a shield between

them and the orthodox faith. I venture to say

there is only one method of neutralising or dimin-

ishing the force of this attack— the method of

PREFACE. V

explaining away, of manipulating texts so as to

make their sense the exact opposite of the natural

meaning of the words. Such a method is not quite

so much in favour as it once was, and somehow it

has ceased to perform those brilliant feats of leger-

demain which used to win so much applause.

Reimarus either speaks truly or falsely ; he quotes

the New Testament either accurately or inaccu-

rately ; he either represents Jesus and the Apostles

in their true light, as seen in the New Testament

itself, or he has grossly misrepresented them.

These are the questions for readers and critics to

settle. They have their New Testament at hand,

and can compare its statements with those of

Reimarus. No controversy was ever reduced within

such reasonable and easy limits, or had its terms

made more definite and intelligible.

After a careful and candid perusal of this book,

the reader will, I trust, join me in heartily thank-

ing the translator for giving to our English students

a critical work of such rare interest and such excep-

tional value.

Camden Hotise, Dultvich,

July, 1879.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

PAGE

Bbiep Sketch of the Life of EEiMAErs ... 1

CHAPTER ir.

Second Part of Fragment on the Object of Jesus and

His Disciples 9

chapter III.

The Ne-w Belief 29

chapter iy.

On Miracles and Prophecies 69

chapter v.

The Worldly Ambition of the Apostles ... 84

INTRODUCTOEY.

CHAPTER I.

Brief Sketch of the Life ofReimarus*

Hermann Samuel Reimaeus was born on the

22nd December, 1694, at Hamburg. His father,

Nikolaus, the son of a clergyman of Stolzenberg,

near Stettin, was a native of Kiel, where he had

studied theology. He married the daughter of a

distinguished patrician family of the name of

Wetken. He was so good a man and so accom-

plished a scholar that his influence upon the educa-

tion and character of his son, whom he taught

almost entirely until he had attained his twelfth year,

must have been a very important one. Reimarus

left his father's house to become a pupil of the re-

nowned John Albrecht Fabricius, whose daughter he

eventually married. At the age of sixteen he left the

Johanneum for the Grymnasium, and in the year 1714,

when he was twenty years old, he entered the

University of Jena. Theology was his favourite

* Translated and abridged from Strauss's "Life of Eeimarus."

B

study, but he also occupied himself -with, great

energy and perseverance in classics and philosophy,

and in 1716 became adjunct of the philosophical

faculty at Wittemberg. In the years 1720 and

1721, to gain further knowledge, he journeyed to

Holland and England, returning thence to his

former post at Wittemberg, which he retained

until the year 1723, when he was appointed Rector

of the School at Wismar. Four years later, on the

death of G. Edzard at Hamburg, the Professorship

of the Hebrew and other Oriental languages became

vacant. The salary of this appointment was not

remunerative ; but out of attachment to his native

place Reimarua applied for and easily obtained it,

resisting other more advantageous offers, particu-

larly a brilliant invitation to become the successor

of Gesner at Gottingen.

. For Reimarus, who outshone his learned father-

in-law, Fabricius, in wit, argument and profound

knowledge, it was a very modest occupation to

teach the elements of Hebrew, and he could only

pursue the higher branches of study, such as Bibli-

cal antiquities, criticism, etc., with a limited num-

ber of pupils. Yet he was as zealous and faithful

in the performance of the duties of his calling as

if he had not been fitted for a position worth})-

of uimsual talents and acquirements. Besides

philology, mathematics, philosophy, and theology,

few men were so well versed in political and his-

torical literature, husbandry, and political economy.

He also had a great love for natural history and

natural sciences, to wHch he added many valuable

contributions. But as years rolled on, the study of

philosophy left all others in the background.

Without making authorship the occupation of his

life, Reimarus has left many invaluable works, and

one upon each of his favourite subjects. He was

anything but a dull bookworm. His great object

seemed to bring science closer to life, to bring menof science nearer to men of the world. He was

modest without being bashful, sympathetic without

being vain or importunate, and notwithstanding

his innate dignity of manner, a lively and charming

companion.

In his later years he enjoyed gathering around

him a circle of men who conversed with unre-

strained sociality upon scientific and useful subjects,

and exchanged one with another their experiences,

discoveries, views, and judgments.

Also the domestic life of Reimarus was exemplary.

His wife, a daughter worthy of Fabricius, gave him

seven children, only three of whom, a son and

two daughters, survived him. No happier, more

united, or more respected family could be found

than his; and long after his death the house of

Reimarus, occupied by his accomplished unmarried

daughter Elise, and his son. Doctor A. Reimarus,

remained one of the scientific centres of Hamburg.

Esteemed both as scholar and as man, honoured

and respected far and near, Reimarus, though not of

robust constitution, reached the comparatively ad-

vanced age of 72. On the 19th of February,

1768, he invited a number of his most intimate

friends to his house to join his mid-day meal, and

on that occasion was as cheerfiil and amiable as

ever; but at parting he told them with solemn

certainty this would be the last time they should

meet together. Three days afterwards he became

seriously ill, and expired peacefully at 3 a.m. on

the 1st March.

The above extract was taken by Strauss from

an interesting and valuable memorial written by

Eeimarus's friend, Biisch, Professor of Mathe-

matics.*

In this memorial, the Fragments published a few

years later by Lessing are not alluded to, and it

is very possible that Biisch may not have known

of their existence. That Reimams imparted their

contents in strict confidence to two or three of his

friends, among whom was the well-known poet

Brockes, we know to have been the case through

his son, J. A. Reimarus, but whether Biisch was

among these confidential friends it is impossible to

say. Even if he were, he may have considered it

his duty not to mention them ; for Reimarus used

to say that the time had not come for him "to bring

forward openly his theological denials " ; so after

* Memorise immortali H. S. Eeimari linguarum orientalium

in Gymnasio Hamburgensi per XLI. annos professoris, quale-

cunque hoc monumentum ofBcii et pietatis causa posuit J. G.

Biisch, Math. P., etc., in Gymnasio Hamburgensi. 33 fol.

his death, his friends considered it a pious duty

towards the departed, not to expose his memory to

humiliation, to accusations ofheresy from the clergy,

and revilings from the multitude.

Lessing only made the acquaintance of Reimarus

during the last year of his life, when his health was

beginning to fail, and therefore did not know him

intimately ; but afterwards a great friendship

sprang up between Lessing and the son and

daughter of Reimarus; and it was from Elise

Reimarus that, after much difficulty and persuasion,

he obtained possession of the precious manuscripts

of the Fragments with leave to publish them ; but

only on promising that he would not reveal the

name of the author ; for the children of Reimarus

dreaded the odium which thereby might be brought

upon their father's name. Lessing published the

Fragments one after another in 1774.

Two of Lessing's most intimate friends, Nicolai

and Mendelsohn, had strongly advised him not to

publish them; but he was not to be dissuaded

from his purpose. After a time the general belief

that the Fragments had been written by Rei-

marus became so strong, that at last Elise began to

fear that Lessing must have betrayed her secret,

and he found himself obliged to write to her

brothers to deny the imputation. It was not untU

1814 that all doubt on the subject was brought to an

end by Dr. A. Reimarus who, in a letter to the library

at Gbttingen, declared his father to have been the

author of the Fragments, which, had he lived to

6

complete them, were to have been gathered into

one book under the title, An Apology for the Reason-

able Believers in God.

The following extracts throw great light on the

mind and heart of Reimarus, and religious people

will be more than gratified by the disclosure of his

own earnest and intense Faith in the Living God :

—

" But God was also to be looked upon as a Judge,

and here a new difficulty presented itself. Rei-

marus had too much sense of truth to endeavour

to explain away by artificial demonstration the

punishment of eternal Hell fire. If salvation was

alone to be found in the name of Jesus, if all whodid not believe in him were to be everlastingly

damned, and as this creed must have been handed

down from the sayings of Jesus himself, it followed

that ninety-nine hundredths of the human race,

those who either had never heard of Christ or of

salvation to be obtained through him, or those whohad not been able to convince themselves of it, were

unmercifully sentenced, after this short life, to ever-

lasting torment ; and this not for the sake of mak-

ing them better, but to punish them, and to satisfy

God's unquenchable wrath, for a sin committed in

the beginning of Creation, and a sin of which they

themselves were guiltless. This seemed to banish

all Divine perfection, all that was lovable and

noble in God, and transformed Him into the like-

ness of a Satanic and hideous demon."

" 'I confess,' said Reimarus, ' that this doubt was

the first which rooted itself in my mind, and so

immovably, that in spite of all my efforts, I never

was able to conquer it.'"

—

Strauss's Life of Reimarus,

p. 260.

" Even if we granted all these miracles to be

true, they would not of themselves be able to sup-

port offensive teachings or actions. Contradictions

cannot be dissolved by any miracle, and vices can-

not miraculously become virtues. But as the

truth of these miracles has not yet been established,

why should we make such tottering facts the basis

of all religion?"—76., p. 262.

" ' That which is absurd and impossible,' says

Reimarus, ' that which in any other history would be

called falsehood, deception, outrage, and cruelty,

cannot be made reasonable, righteous, and true bythe added words : Thus saith the Lord.' "

Reimarus originally wrote the Fragments, as he

said, " from time to time, to pacify his mind; for,

after doubts had arisen and troubled him for several

years, he resolved to write them carefully down, so

as to look them well in the face, and see whether

they were of sufficient weight to give the matter a

decisive issue."

" The first thing that struck him, and the first con-

clusion he came to, was that the Bible is not a

book of religious instruction or a catechism."

—

Ih., p. 264.

8

"Wten still in their cradles, the children of

men, like born slaves, are forced to enlist as soldiers

under a particular little flag, so that if they even-

tually would free themselves from this bondage

they can be accused and punished as deserters."

" The idea of Grod, as the most perfect of beings,

existed full and warm in the heart of Eeimarus, as

we see by the following words :— ' Far be it from

Thee, great Judge of the World, most lovable,

most kind, most charitable, most merciful God, to

pronounce so unjust a sentence upon the poor crea-

tures Thou hast created 1

'

" ' How would such conduct compare with that of

the most perfect of men ? How could the likeness

of the most impure, the most malignant enemy of

Grod and man, be represented in a more hideous

form?'"—/&., p. 262.

CHAPTER II.

Secondpart ofFragment on the Object

ofyesus and His Disciples.

Section I.

We will now, however, step nearer and more

directly to the subject in question, and examine

both systems according to the sayings and doings

of Jesus himself, so far as they are handed down to

us. It is evident that with regard to the old

system, all depends upon whether the evangelists,

in their history of Jesus, left unintentionally and

through sheer carelessness, a few remaining traces

of the reasons which influenced them at first in

attributing to their master the object of becoming

a worldly deliverer of Israel. Whereas, with regard

to the new system of a spiritual deliverer of man-

kind all depends, as the apostles themselves dis-

tinctly own, upon whether Jesus really arose after

his death and ascended into Heaven, which latter

event the disciples declare that they themselves wit-

nessed, asserting that they saw him, touched him,

and spoke with him.* In this chapter we will con-

sider the first, and in the following one, the second

* The apostles do not declare this tliemselves.

—

Editoe.

10

of these systems. We have now to deal with a

matter which the evangelists have taken great pains

to conceal from us (as I have recently shown), and

for this reason we shall require the most careful

attention; but as the evangelists did not seel? to

conceal that they looked upon Jesus as a worldly

deliverer of Israel up to the time of his death ; and

as the Jews were well aware that such had been

their constant belief, it could not well have been

possible for them utterly to destroy and banish all

traces of their former system from their history of

Jesus. These traces we will now endeavour to

discover.

Section II.

If it were true that in commanding repentance

and conversion to be preached, the object of Jesus

was, that men should believe in him as a spiritual

saviour: if it were also true that his desire was byhis death and suffering alone to deliver man, he

nevertheless knew that the Jews did not expect a

saviour of this kind, and that they had no idea of

any other than a worldly deliverer of Israel, whowas to release them from bondage and build up a

glorious worldly kingdom for them. Why, then,

does Jesus so plainly send to announce in all the

towns, schools, and houses of Judea, that the king-

dom of Heaven is near at hand ? For this signified

that the kingdom of the deliverer, or of the Mes-

siah, was about to begin. He knew that if the

11

people believed his messengers, they would look

for a worldly king, and would attach themselves

to him Avith the conviction that he was this king

;

because, unless they received further and better

instruction, they could have no other conception of

the Idngdom of Heaven or kingdom of God, or of

the joyful message, or of any faith in the same,

than that which they had learnt according to the

popular meaning of the words, and to the prevail-

ing impression of them. Ought not Jesus, then,

before all things, to have endeavoured, through his

apostles as heavenly messengers, to help the igno-

rant out of their coarse illusion, and thus to have

directed their faith, repentance, and conversion to-

wards the right object? For if the people only

repented and were converted for the sake of enjoy-

ing happiness and glory in the kingdom of the

Messiah, according to their delusion, their repent-

ance, conversion and faith were not of the right

sort. But Jesus did not convey to them any better

idea of himself. We know this—first, because it is

nowhere asserted that he did so ; and secondly,

because he chose for his messengers men who

were themselves under the common impression,

which impression had not been removed for a better

one.

Jesus then must haye been well aware that by

such a plain announcement of the kingdom of

Heaven, he would only awaken the Jews to the

hope of a worldly Messiah ; consequently, this must

have been his object in so awakening them. As

12

regards the sending out of the apostles on their

mission, we must suppose, either that Jesus did or

did not know, what their impression of the king-

dom of Heaven was. In the first case, it is clear

that his object must have been to rouse the Jews to

the expectation of a speedy worldly deliverance,

because he employed messengers whom he knew to

have no other belief, and who therefore could not

preach a different one. In the second case, if he

did not know their impression, he must still have

guessed them to be under the universally prevailing

one, and so ought to have enlightened and instructed

the disciples until they abandoned their delusion,

and were fully convinced of the truth of his real

object, in order that they might not propagate a

false gospel. But it is evident that the disciples,

both then and afterwards, retained the delusion, or

the beKef, in a worldly deliverer of Israel through

the Messiah, and were not converted to any other.

Jesus, nevertheless, sends them to preach the king-

dom of Heaven, and to become the teachers of

others; therefore he must have approved of the

prevailing belief among the disciples and people,

and it must have been his object to encourage and

circulate it throughout Judea. This action on the

part of Jesus cannot be justified. In sending such

missionaries, he could have had no other object than

to rouse the Jews in all parts of Judea, who had so

long been groaning under the Koman yoke, and so

long been preparing for the hoped-for deliverance,

and to induce them to flock to Jerusalem.

13

Section III.

With, this intention,* the rest of the actions of

Jesus agree.

His cousin, John the Baptist, had already-

sharpened the ears of the people, and although his

•words had been rather dark, he had still pointed

out pretty distinctly that it was upon Jesus they

should build their hopes. At the same time, John

is by way of not knowing Jesus, and acts as though

he only became aware of his existence through

divine revelation. He speaks to the people :—" I

knew him not until he was revealed to Israel, there-

fore am I come to baptise with water I

knew him not, but He who sent me to baptise with

water, the same spake unto me saying : He upon

whom thou seest the Spirit descend and remain, the

same is he who baptises with the Holy Spirit; and

I have seen this and bear witness that this one is

the son of Grod," Twice, then, John openly says

that he did not know Jesus before his baptism.

But were they not cousins ? Were their

mothers not intimate friends, who visited each

other ? Did not Jesus, when a boy, often go up to

Jerusalem with his relations and friends, so that

John, who was about his own age, and on the same

road, must surely have kept up his acquaintance

* Namely, that of establishing Ms •worldly kingdom.

14

and cousinly relationship? Why then will they

not know each other before the people ? I tried to

find an apology for this, by supposing that John

did not wish altogether to deny that he knew his

cousin personally, but wished only to conyey that

until the baptism, he knew him not as the Christ or

Messiah, " whose shoe," as he says, " he was not

worthy to untie." But the evangelist Matthew

has deprived me of this idea, for according to his

version, John acknowledged Jesus to be the Mes-

siah before the baptism. When Jesus came out of

Galilee to be baptised, John strongly opposes his

intention, saying, "I have need to be baptised by

thee, and comest thou to me ? " So he must have

known Jesus before the baptism, not only very well

personally, but it would appear also as one by whomhe himself needed to be baptised, that is by the

Holy Spirit—which was what the Messiah was

expected to do. This clearly contradicts the former

version, and betrays the concerted card. Thecousins knew each other well, the one was aware

of the other's object and intention. They perform

extraordinary actions at one and the same time, bywhich the one furthers the purpose of the other.

John announces that the kingdom of Heaven is at

hand, that the Messiah is in their midst, but that

they know him not. Jesus comes to John to be

made known as such, through him. Then they

begin to praise each other* before the people.

The literal translation is " make themselves great."

15

Jesus says :" John is a prophet, yea, more than a

prophet, he is Elias, or the forerunner of the Mes-

siah ; among all born of women, there is none

greater than he." John says of Jesus that he is

the Christ, the son of Grod, that he -will baptise with

the Holy Spirit, and that he, John, is not worthy

to carry his shoes or to loosen them. John pretends

to receive his revelation at the baptism. He sees

the heavens open, and the spirit fly down in the

shape of a dove. He hears a " Bathkol," a "filiam

vocis," or voice from Heaven, which cries, "This is

my dear son, in whom I have pleasure." I believe

I have reverted elsewhere to the fact that not one

of those who stood around John and Jesus saw or

heard anything. John was only carrying out his

preconcerted plan, acting as though in an ecstasy

he saw a prophetic vision, and as though he heard

a voice from Heaven sounding in his ears.

The Jews were bound to believe that a prophet

had seen and heard that which none of the by-

standers had seen and heard, and at that time, they

were accustomed to be convinced by a so-called

Bathkol or "voice from Heaven," but this "voice

from Heaven," among the Israelites, was, according

to the confession of all sensible theologists, nothing

but pre-arranged trickery and deception. John

made use then of representations and inventions to

further the design of Jesus, and Jesus was perfectly

well aware that he did so. Accordingly they en-

deavour to carry out their intention by using the

same manner of speech and the same manner of

16

teaching. John begins to preach :" Repent ye, for

the kingdom of Heaven is at hand." Soon after-

wards, Jesus begins to preach, saying :" Repent ye,

for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand." And as

soon as he obtains disciples, he sends them all over

Judea to spread about the same words. In announc-

ing this, Jesus does not attempt to deprive the Jews

of their delusion of a worldly and bodily deliverer

any more than does John. They both allow the

people to connect the old conception of a "kingdom

of Heaven" or "kingdom of the Messiah" with

their words. Had John, as messenger, begun by

eradicating this fancy from the minds of men, Jesus

might, without further declaration, have depended

upon them ; but as this deeply-rooted idea was

allowed to be retained, and was encouraged by

John as well as by Jesus and his disciples, neither

John nor Jesus could have had any other object

than that of awakening the people to the speedy

arrival of the long-hoped-for deliverer, and of mak-

ing them eager for his coming. It was for this pur-

pose that they preached repentance, for the Jews

believed that if they only repented really and truly,

God would allow the Messiah to come and release

them from their misery, their bondage, and their

oppressors, and would establish among them a mag-

nificent kingdom, like unto David's. This " prepa-

ration by earnest repentance " could not be other-

wise interpreted by the Jews, nor could it have

been intended by Jesus and John that they should

otherwise interpret it. If, indeed, at the present

17

day, a Jew expected his worldly Messiah, and

wished to announce his coming, he would, in

accordance with the universal teaching of the

Jewish Church, preach no other preparation for it

than that of earnest repentance and reform. For

this very reason, Jesus wished to prove that all those

who had been before him, and had given them-

selves out as dehverers of the people, were not the

right ones, that they were thieves and murderers,

who, by unlawful violence, instead of exhortations

to repentance, thought to accomplish their purpose.

The saviour, whom the Jews expected, was to

resemble their first deliverer from bondage, Moses,

inasmuch as he was to be a great prophet, and was

to perform many great miracles : these being,

according to the orthodox church, the acknowledged

and proper signs by which the expected Messiah

was to be recognised, Jesus preaches and teaches

as a prophet and performs miracles. ^The people

could not banish from their minds that these

were the signs by which they might know the

deliverer. The actions of Jesus strengthened them

in the belief, that like unto their first saviour, whohad been a wonderful prophet, so this one was the

other saviour who, through like miracles, would

release them from like bondage and build up the

kingdom of Israel. It was because of this that they

said, alluding to the miracles and teachings of

Jesus :" Thou art truly the prophet who should

come into the world," after which they wanted to

make him king. But Jesus slipped away from them

18

and escaped to a mountain. It is remarkable that

he did not seize this opportunity of reproving the

people, of assuring them that they were mistaken,

and that he had come for a very different purpose.

This would have been most necessary ifJesus really

had had another object in view, and wished the

people to think so. As it was, they could not do

otherwise than cling to their convictions with, regard

to him. But it was not his intention to allow him-

self to be made a king in a desert place, and by

a common rabble, such as then surrounded him.

Neither the time nor the place suited him. His

thoughts were bent upon a grand entry into the

city of Jerusalem, at the Passover, a time when all

Israelites throughout Judea would be assembled

there, and when it would be conducted in a festive

manner, and when, by the united voices of the

populace he would be proclaimed King of the

Jews.

Much in the same manner Jesus acted with

regard to making known his miracles. He forbids

them to be nientioned where it was impossible that

they should remain secret, on purpose to make the

people all the more eager to talk about them. Theleper was to tell no one, and yet he was to showhimself to the priest as a witness. The blind menwere to take heed lest they divulged that they hadreceived their sight, and yet everybody had heard

them calling after him in the street for help. Whenlarge crowds followed him, and he had healed someof their sick, he tells the people to beware of mak-

19

ing it known. When he was much pressed by the

throng, and he cast out devils before all eyes, he

tells the people to take care it should not be known.

When he had awakened the maiden of twelve years

from her death-sleep in a house full of people, whowere all anxiously waiting to see whether he would

make good his words, " She is not dead, but

sleepeth," he again commands that none are to

know or hear of what he had done ; and when they

brought him a deaf and dumb man, he takes him

and returns him to the people, speaking and hear-

ing, and desires that no one is to be told. It

appears to me that he who tells or shows anything

even to single persons, one after another, on con-

dition that they do not repeat it, might reasonably

be accused of folly, for supposing that others would

keep secret that which he cannot himself conceal

;

but he who requires silence from numerous persons

upon what they have witnessed, I am inclined to

think, has the intention of making them the more

eager to spread the news. And so it was in this

case. The more he forbade them, so much the

more they proclaimed it.

At another time, he himself commands that his

miracles are to be made known, and when the dis-

ciples of John come to him with the question

—

" Art thou he that should come, or do we look for

another ?"—^he publishes his miracles before all

the world, that they might conclude him to be the

real Messiah :" Tell John what you see and hear.

The blind recover their sight, the lame walk, the

20

lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are

raised, and the Grospel is preached to the poor, and

blessed are they who shall not be oflfended because

of me."

Section VI.

Jesus continues to pursue the same course with

regard to his main object, viz., that of being recog-

nised as the Christ or Messiah. His cousin had

already announced him, and now he himself dis-

tinctly acknowledges that he is the expected man,

and sends his disciples to spread this gospel in all

directions. On another occasion he reveals himself

in very dry words to the Samaritan woman, and

she immediately proclaims in the town that she has

found the Messiah ; upon which the inhabitants

flock out to see him. He . also acknowledges him-

self to be the Christ before the High Priest and

the Synhedrion and before Pilate, and yet here

and there forbids himself to be mentioned as

such, even by his disciples. Of the kingdom of

Heaven, Jesus speaks to the people in parables, out

of which they could gather what they pleased. But

he adds a sprinkling here and there of the great

power which has been given to him, and of the seat

of glory upon which he will sit and do judgment.

He tells his disciples that he will bestow upon them

a kingdom, as his Father has bestowed one on him,

that they shall eat and drink at his table in his

kingdom, and sit upon twelve seats and judge the

21

twelve tribes of Israel. The disciples had previ-

ously been asking him, saying :" See, we have left

all and followed thee, what reward shall we have

for this?" Jesus answered as above, adding:

"and whosoever leaves houses or brothers or sisters

or father or mother or wife or children or fields

for my name's sake, the same shall receive all back

an hundredfold and shall inherit everlasting life."

Thus he promised them, as soon as his splendid king-

dom should commence, a judgeship and power over

the twelve tribes of Israel, and a hundred times as

many houses, fields, &c., as they had left. All this

doubtless referred to a worldly kingdom, and con-

firmed the necessary opinion which the disciples

were quite ready to adopt. At length, when he

imagined that the apostolic wanderings, his own

teachings and miracles during the last two years,

had sufficiently prepared and inclined the people to

accept him and retain him as their expected Mes-

siah, he fixes upon the time of the Easter festival,

because he well knew that all Judea would then be

assembled at Jerusalem. He chooses an ass with a

foal in order to ride in state into the city, and appear

as though he were the king of whom it was

written :" Behold thy king cometh to thee." The

apostles now thought that the kingdom was really

about to commence. They busy themselves, assisted

by some of the people, in spreading clothes upon

the road, in strewing palms, and in crying "Hosanna

to the son of David," that is to say, " Hail to the

king, the Messiah who shall sit upon the throne of

22

David ; blessed be he who eomes in the name of the

Lord." In this fashion he rides through the gates

into the city of Jerusalem, upon which there ensues

a crowd, an uproar, and the whole town is thrown

into a state of excitement. This extraordinary-

public procession, which was not only tolerated b}'"

Jesus, but had been diligently encouraged by him,

could not have been aimed at anything but a

worldly kingdom. He wished that all the people

of Israel who were there gathered together should

unanimously proclaim him King.

Section VII.

It is possible that Jesus may not have felt quite

comfortable as to the result of this undertaking, and

that he may have previously told his disciples that

he must be ready to suffer and to die. But these were

elated with hope, they promised to support and not

to forsake him, even should they die with him.

So the attempt was ventured upon. Jesus takes

his seat upon the ass, he allows royal honours to be

done to him, he makes a public entry, and as this

appears in some measure to succeed, he goes

straight to the temple, where the High Court of

Justice was wont to be held; he lays aside his

gentleness, begins a disturbance, and commits acts

of violence, like one who suddenly cbnsiders him-

self possessed of worldly power. He overturns the

23

tables of the money-changers, takes a scourge and

drives the buyers and sellers and dealers in doves

into the outer court of the temple. Then he per-

forms some miracles inside, and teaches. Early on

the following day he delivers a sharp harangue

against those Pharisees and scribes who sit on the

seat of Moses, that is to say, the members of the

High Court of Justice, the magistrates and the

Synhedrion. He then publicly declares himself to

be the Christ, and that he alone is their Lord and

master. He abuses the Pharisees and learned

Scribes of whom the senate is composed, calling

them hypocrites, who close the gates of the king-

dom of Heaven, who devour widows' houses, who

are blind guides, fools, whited sepulchres, murderers

of the prophets, serpents, and a generation of vipers.

At last he concludes, telling them that they will

see him no more until they all cry, " Blessed is he

who Cometh in the name of the Lord," as the

apostles had cried before. Now is not this inciting

the people to rebellion ? Is not this stirring them

up against the government ? Was not this saying

as much to them as " Down with the senate, down

with the magistrates, who are nothing but blind

guides, hypocrites, and unjust men ; they are only

a hindrance to the kingdom of the Messiah. One

is your master, even I, and you shall henceforth

not see my face until you proclaim me the Christ

who is come to you in the name of the Lord."

24

Section VIII.

Thus then peeps out from the histories of the

evangelists their true old notion of a worldly

deliverer ; and if we foUow the conduct of Jesus up

to the exhibition of his entry and the acclamation,

" Hail to the son of David," we can see clearly

enough that all the other circumstances attached to

the later accepted creed of a Holy Saviour are in-

consistent with this sequel to the teaching and

behaviour of Jesus. For what was the meaning of

this festive procession and cry of " Hail to the

king ?" What was the meaning of the violence

and interruption of order in the Temple ? Whatwas the meaning of the seditious speech to the

people against the High Council ? Why were they

stimulated to recognize him alone as their master ?

Jesus here shows plainly enough what his intention

was, but then this was the actus criticus and decre-

t07nus—th.e act which was to give the successful turn

to the whole undertaking, and upon which every-

thing depended. Had the people in Jerusalem

followed him and joined in proclaiming him king

as the apostles did, he would have had all Judea

on his side, the High Court of Justice would have

been overthrown, and Jesus, together with his

seventy chosen disciples, woidd have been placed

in the Synhedrion instead of the Pharisees and the

learned Scribes. Jesus had reckoned too confi-

25

dently upon the approval of the people. John the

Baptist, who was to have supported the movement,

had been imprisoned and beheaded. Jesus had ex-

pected favourable results from the sending about of

the apostles, and imagined after they had traversed

all the towns of Judea, that the Son of Man might

venture to declare himself. The vulgar and igno-

rant flocked indeed to Jesus, they liked to hear his

parables ; his moral teachings were more palatable

to them than those of the Pharisees; many also

hoped to be cured of their diseases by him ; but

this was insufficient for the main object. No manof distinction, of education, no Pharisee, only the

common rabble, had as yet followed Jesus. The

conviction of the reality of his miracles could not

then have been very strong. Had it been so, more

powerful adherents would not have been wanting.

We are told by the evangelists that here and there

Jesus could not perform any miracles because the

people would not believe in him, and that he re-

proves whole towns (Chorazin and Bethsaida, where

he is supposed to have performed most miracles)

because of their want of faith ; and when the Pha-

risees and learned Scribes of the High Council ask

him to justify himself by a miracle, he refuses, and

begins to scold instead. If a single miracle had

been performed publicly, convincingly, and un-

deniably by Jesus before all the world on the day

of the great festival, men are so constituted that all

would have joined him ; but how very few Jews of

any worth or standing were on his side is evident

26

from the fact that, after the iirst shouting of his

disciples and some of the crowd was over, no one

else continued the cry •' Hail to the son of David."

It is probable that the people might also have

taken the disorderly and violent actions committed

by Jesus in the Temple, and the bitter invectives he

used against their rulers, as a foretoken of further

trouble to themselves. The Senate had at all

events great reason to keep a watchful eye upon

such a beginning on the part of Jesus. There

had been many before him who had pretended by

miracles to set themselves up as Messiahs, and

whose ambitious motives had been discovered in

the unfolding and failure of their plans. The Jews

were at that time under the domination of the

Romans, and if the people had suffered and encou-

raged any such turbulent beginning on the part of

a proclaimed king who was to give freedom to

Israel, they (the Romans) would doubtless have

used their power to the greater restriction and

slavery of the Jews. So they were obliged to con-

sult as to how Jesus should be taken, and howdanger in doing so should be avoided. WhenJesus saw that the people did not shout " Hosanna

to the son of David " as enthusiastically as did his

disciples, but rather that they forsook him, and

that the judges were about to seize him, he

abstained from shewing himself in the Temple. Hehad not the courage to celebrate the Easter festival

in the right manner, because in that case he, or his

disciples in his name, would have been obliged to

27

appear at the Temple, to kill the Easter lamb, to

sprinkle the blood upon the altar ; and then he or

they might have been taken, or their whereabouts

might have been traced. Jesus, therefore, kept

only a pascha, fivrjfiovevTixov, or remembrance feast,

and did so earlier than was usual. He ordered

some swords to be procured to defend himseif

with in case of attack, but was uneasy, lest even

one of his own disciples should divulge his place

of retreat. He began to quiver and quake when he

saw that his adventure might cost him his life.

Judas betrayed his hiding-place, and pointed out

his person. He was taken the night before the 14th

Nisan, and after a short trial was crucified, before

the slaughtering of the Easter lambs in the Temple

had begun. He ended his life with the words, ''Eli,

Eli, lama sabaciliani? " "My God, my Grod, whyhast Thou forsaken me ?"—a confession which can

hardly be otherwise interpreted than that Grod had

not helped him to carry out his intention and

attain his object as he had hoped He would have

done. It was then clearly not the intention or the

object of Jesus to suffer and to die, but to build up

a worldly kingdom, and to deliver the Israelites

from bondage. It was in this that Grod had for-

saken him, it was in this that his hopes had been

frustrated.

28

Section IX.

Thus the existing history of Jesus enlightens us

more and more upon the object of his conduct and

teaching, which entirely correspond with the first

idea entertained of him by his apostles, i.e., that

he was a worldly deliverer. It enlightens us also

upon the fact that they had good reason to believe

in him as such so long as he lived. It also shows

that the master, and how much more his disciples,

found themselves mistaken and deceived by the con-

demnation and the death, and that the new system

of a suffering spiritual Saviour, which no one had

ever known or thought of before, was invented after

the death of Jesus, and invented only because the

first hopes had failed. However, let us lay aside

the authenticity of the old belief and carefully

examine the new. Let us try to find out whether

it can boast of a surer foundation.

CHAPTER III.

The New Belief.

The apostles themselves, by abandoning their former

belief, show that they own themselves to have been

mistaken, during the lifetime of Jesus, in his in-

tentions and purpose, We may imagine that the

altered opinions of such men, men who acknow-

ledged themselves to have been grossly mistaken

and disappointed in their hopes, were not likely to

be better or surer than their previous opinions.

But we will be as just as possible towards them.

We will for a time forget their former errors, and

will thoroughly weigh their new creed by itself,

and according to their own views and grounds.

Their system then consisted briefly in this : That

Christ or the Messiah was bound to die in order to

obtain forgiveness for mankind, and consequently

to achieve his own glory ; that upon the strength

of this he arose living from death out of his tomb

upon the third day as he had prophesied, and

ascended into heaven, from whence he would soon

return in the clouds of Heaven with great power

and glory to judge the believers and the un-

believers, the good and the bad, and that then

the kingdom of glory would commence.

30

Now everyone will readily acknowledge, as do

the apostleSj that Christianity depends entirely

upon the truth of the story of the resurrection of

Jesus from the dead. Everybody knows that the

apostles established it as a fact, partly through the

evidence .of Pilate's watchmen at the grave, partly

by their own statements and support, and partly

through the prophecies of the Old Testament. Wewill follow and examine this threefold proof in three

separate chapters, and will afterwards consider the

promise of the return of Jesus in the clouds at so

distinctly an appointed time, that it ought to have

taken place long ago. We shall then be in a posi-

tion to judge of the truth of the system. I shall

begin by carefully putting aside all extraneous par-

ticulars which could give to Christianity either a

good or a repulsive aspect, for nothing can be con-

cluded with any certainty from them ; they do not

concern the essence of the subject, and, therefore,

can give no proof. Only those persons who cherish

their prejudices and think to take others in by

them are apt to begin by daubing over their

subject with a good coat of selected circumstances

and secondary matters, and to fascinate the mind

by them before they touch upon any part of the

substance. And this they do in order that they

may afterwards be permitted carefully to slip over

the main point. I will step right up to the thing

itself upon which all depends, and after clear and

distinct argument, I will deliver my opinion of

it. If in this manner the truth of the main point

31

or dogma can be convincingly produced, "we shall

the more confidently be able to criticise the out-

ward and equivocal accessory circumstances.

Section X.

The first and most important question is

Here follows the fragment concerning the story of

the resurrection which I (Lessing) have incorporated

with the librarian contributions. It runs from this

tenth section to the thirty-second section, and with

the thirty-third section the author continues his

subject as follows.

Section XXXIII.

As, however, the witnesses of the resurrection of

Jesus are unable to bring forward any others, but

are the only ones who pretend to have seen that

which for other honest people remained invisible,

and as in their reports they contradicted them-

selves in manifold ways, we must go further and

see whether their assertion can be better proved

by Scripture.

The worthy Stephen was the first who persisted

so firmly in his persuasion of the resurrection of

Jesus, that he allowed himself to be stoned to

death for it ; but as he could not support his asser-

32

tion by his experience and nowhere mentions ever

having seen Jesus alive, or after he had risen from

the dead, he has recourse to a proof he has found

in the writings of the Old Testament, and in order

to deliver himself of it in perfection, he becomes

full of the Holy Grhost. His demonstration of the

truth of the Christian religion is such a curious

one, that were it not so circumstantially tedious, I

would repeat the whole of it here. However, myreaders will see for themselves that in giving its

principal contents, I do not omit or twist awry

anything essential.*

He begins by relating a hundred things one does

not care to hear, and which have nothing whatever

to do with the question ; how Abraham was called

out of Mesopotamia to Canaan, how his descendants

were to inherit the land after four hundred years,

how Isaac, Jacob and Joseph sprang from him, howJoseph was sold into Egypt and there became a

great man, how he brought over his family, at

what place Jacob and his sons were buried, how

the descendants were kept in bondage, how Moses

was born, how he was reared and educated by

Pharaoh's daughter, how he killed an Egyptian

and fled in consequence to Midian, how forty years

afterwards he was chosen to release Israel, how he

accomplished this by many miracles, how he re-

ceived the commandments upon Mount Sinai, howthe Israelites went back to the Egyptian idolatry

* Acts of the Apostles, chap, vii.

33

of the calf, Moloch and Remphan, how they re-

ceived the tabernacle of witness and transported

it to the land until the time of David. HowDavid wanted to build a house, and how Solomon

actually did so, although God does not dwell in

houses. Now, does not the question occur to one

:

Why this long tale, which has nothing to do with

Jesus or his resurrection ? For, that Jesus was

brought into the land of Canaan with the taber-

nacle of witness or inside of it is incomprehensible

to any man. But patience ! Now comes the

proof. At any rate Stephen begins to abuse the

High Council. " Ye stiff-necked and uncircum-

cised in heart and ears, ye resist at all times the

Holy Grhost. As' your fathers did, so do ye.

Which of the prophets did not your fathers perse-

cute ? Yea, they have slain those who announced

the coming of this just one, of whom you have

been the betrayers and murderers, who have

received the commandments by the ministering

of angels, and have not kept it."

Here, it appears, that his demonstration has

come to an end, and that nothing is wanting but

the " Q. E. D." But as the stiff-necked, treacher-

ous murderers, godless members of the senate,

become angry instead of believing him, Stephen

is suddenly filled with the Holy Grhost, gazes into

Heaven, sees the Glory of God, and tells them that

he sees Jesus standing up there ! It is a pity that

among these seventy enlightened men there is not

one who has eyes clear enough to see all this like-

D

34

wise. To the single man Stephen it is alone

visible, and for this reason it is impossible for them

to accept his visionary evidence. He is con-

demned, and stoned to death.

Skction XXXIV.

Another and a rather ingenious attempt at prov-

ing the Christian religion, and the resurrection of

Jesus, is made by Paul in the synagogue at An-

tioch.* He begins by signing with his hand that

the audience should keep quiet, and then speaks :

—

"Ye men of Israel, and ye that fear God,

hearken unto me.

"

Observe, my reader, that I shall let Paul speak,

yet also reveal my own thoughts, which, if I set

myself in the place of the to-be-converted Antio-

chians, would enter my mind at this speech of Paul.

" The God of this people hath chosen our

fathers and hath exalted the people, whenthey were strangers in the land of Egypt, and

with a high arm He brought them out of it."

This is certainly beginning in grand style

!

"And for about forty years He suffered

their manners in the wilderness, and when

* Acts of the Apostles, .chap. xiii.

35

He had destroyed seven nations in the wilder-

ness, He divided their land to them by lot."

What is the meaning of all this ? What has it to

do with the question ?

" And after that He gave unto them judges

about the space of four hundred and fifty

years, until Samuel the prophet. And from

this time they desired a king. And Godgave them Saul, the son of Kis, a man of the

tribe of Benjamin, by the space of forty years

;

and He removed him, and raised up David to

be their king, to whom also He gave testi-

mony, and said^I have found David, the son

of Jesse, a man after my own heart, which

shall do all my will."

All this we knew from the Scriptures. What on

earth is he going to draw from it ?

" Of this man's seed hath God, according to

His promise, raised unto Israel the Saviour

Jesus."

But, my dear Paul, even if this should he proved,

would it not have been better to leave out all the

well-known stories of the Israehtes, and rather

make this promise valid, show its real sense, and

explain that it could not have referred to any other

man than Jesus?

" When John had first preached before his

36

coming the baptism of repentance to all the

people of Israel, but when John fulfilled his

course, he said— ' Whom think ye that I am ?

I am not he. But behold there cometh one

after me, whose shoes I am not worthy to

loose from his feet.'

"

We must, I suppose, excuse the hurried jump

from the prophecies of the prophets to John the

Baptist. But if this is to prove the former proposi-

tion, the deduction from it is that John preached

repentance, and pointed out Jesus as the Messiah

;

not that Jesus of Nazareth was promised hy any of

the prophets to be the saviour of Israel. If, then,

John's evidence alone is to show that this Jesus is

the Messiah, we must decline to accept his testi-

mony, because he has never proved it to us by the

Old Testament, nor has he by any miracles or pro-

phecies asserted himself to be a new prophet, in

whom we ought to believe. This we do know of

him, that he was a near relation of Jesus.

" Ye men, dear brethren, ye children of the

stock of Abraham, and whosoever among you

feareth God, to you is the word of this salva-

tion sent.'

The address sounds charming, and might else-

where win over the mind, but as yet we have not

arrived so far as to be convinced of the word of this

salvation. We have not yet understood from it

37

that the old prophets spoke of Jesus of Nazareth as a

saviour, nor that he must be a saviour because John

said so. To promise oneself salvation without con-

viction, is to flatter oneself with an idle hope ; and

to abandon one's religion and take up a new one

without any cause, is to play with religion.

" For they that dwell at Jerusalem, and

their rulers, because they knew him not, nor

yet the voices of the prophet which are read

every Sabbath day, they have fulfilled them

in condemning him. And though they found

no cause of death in him, yet desired they

Pilate that he should be slain. And when

they had fulfilled all that was written of him,

they took him down from the tree, and laid

him in a sepulchre."

If our rulers have not heard any further evidence

of Jesus, than we Antiochians have, up to this day,

they could not have recognised him as the Saviour.

For in these very prophets, whom we read every

Sabbath day, his name is nowhere mentioned, nor

can we find in them any mark v/hich could refer us

to this person. But as he, notwithstanding, pre-

tended to be a Messiah, we cannot be surprised

that the High Council should condemn him to death.

In all fairness, we must allow that the judges pro-

nounced righteous judgment, that these seventy

learned men could not find in Jesus any trace of

the prophetic signs, and we must moreover grant

38

that these distinguished rulers of the people anti-

cipated the tumult and confusion which would have

arisen from his conduct, and prevented it.

"But God awakened him from the dead,

and he appeared many days to them which

went up to Jerusalem with him, which are his

witnesses before all the world."

Yes, but even had he risen from the dead, it

would not follow that he was the Saviour, for weread in the Scriptures of others whom God had

raised from the dead, but none of whom, on that

account, He destined to be the Messiah of the people.

And particularly this, that Jesus arose from death wehave no good grounds for believing. The witnesses

are his disciples and followers, people who are not

in good repute with us. The senate at Jerusalem

has distinctly warned us against them, saying, that

these disciples came to the grave secretly, by night,

and stole away the body of Jesus, and that nowthey were going about, proclaiming that he had

arisen from the dead. We must not be blamed for

placing more confidence in the members of the

High Council than in such insignificant and sus-

picious witnesses.

" And we declare unto you glad tidings,

how that the promise which was made unto

the fathers, God hath fulfilled the same unto

us their children, in that He hath raised up

39

Jesus again, as it is also written in the second

psalm : Thou art my son, this day have I be-

gotten thee,"

You, then, Paul, would fain persuade us, not from

your own personal experience as a witness, but from

Scripture prophecies, that Grod raised Jesus from

death. I pray you look at the second psalm, and tell

us where it affirms that the words—" Thou art myson, this day have I begotten thee," are equivalent

to "In some distant day I will raise Jesus of Naza-

reth, Joseph's son, from the dead." Who can

allow your explanation of Scripture ? The text

neither promises that any one shall in future rise

from the dead, nor that any one arisen from the

dead shall be the son of God, nor, on the other

hand, that he who is the son of God must arise

from the dead, or that Jesus of Nazareth is the son

of God. We may turn and twist the text as wewill, nothing can be got out of it that has the

smallest connection with your proposition. Wenaturally suppose the words to be David's, whomGod has accepted as His well-beloved and His son,

and out of a shepherd has made a king. David

informs us that the Lord spoke unto him (that is to

say, through Samuel and Nathan), saying—" Thou

(David) art my son (my well-beloved and mychosen), this day (now and henceforth) have I

begotten thee (accepted thee as a son, and elected

thee a king)." The whole of the psalm of Ethan is

an expounding of these words. God is introduced,

40

speaking thus: ''I have made a covenant with mychosen one, I have sworn unto David my servant: I

will establish thy seed everlastingly, and will build

up thy seat for ever and ever." Then the prophet

speaks: "At that time thou didst speak face to

face with thy beloved, and saidst : I have awakened

a hero who shall help, I have exalted a chosen one

from the people. I have found David, my servant,

I have anointed him with my holy oil, he will call

me : Thou, my Father, my Grod, the rock of mysalvation. I will make thee the first-born, the

highest among the kings of the earth. I will for

ever keep for him my beneficence, and my cove-

nant shall be faithfully kept." Doubtless, then, it

must be David to whom God speaks in the other

psalm, where he is, as in this one, called the son of

God, a chosen one, a first-born who shall call Godhis Father. In prophetic language, God has be-

gotten him—that is to say, accepted him as a son, in

the same manner in which (according to Moses)

God had begotten Israel (who is also termed the

son of God), and again in the same manner in which,

according to the prophet, Israel has begotten the

strangers who have been received into the church.

But what does all this prove of Jesus of Nazareth ?

" And as concerning that He raised him

up from the dead in such wise that he shall

henceforth not return to the grave, He said

also : I will give you the sure mercies of

David."

41

Others may be able to understand this method of

demonstrating. For us it is too clever. According

to it, the words, " I will give you the sure mercies

of David," have the same meaning as the words,

"I will awaken Jesus of Nazareth from death, in

such wise that he henceforth shall not return to the

grave." To us it appears that Esaias says, Godwill make an everlasting covenant with the

Israelites, and give them the same good fortune

which He promised to David, and which promise Hekept, namely, that many nations should be in sub-

jection to him. Esaias also explains himself to this

effect in his very next verse: " Behold I have placed

him (David) as a witness before the people, to be a

prince and a ruler of the people."

" Therefore speaketh he also at another place

(Psalm xvi. 10): Thou wilt not suffer Thy

Holy One to see corruption; for David, after

he had served his generation, fell asleep, and

was laid unto his fathers and saw corruption

;

but he whom God raised again, saw no cor-

ruption."

If we take hold of the argument thus, it will

sound more distinct.

The Psalm speaks of one who is not to see cor-

ruption ; but David did see corruption. Therefore

David could not have been he of whom the Psalm

speaks. And, again, " He whom God awakened

saw no corruption ; but God awakened Jesus, there-

42

fore Jesus did not see corruption, therefore Jesus is

he of whom the Psalm speaks." Now, Paul, with

regard to your first inference, the question is,

whether the words " seeing corruption " are to be

taken literally, or whether they refer to a certain

time, and to impending peril of death. I think

that any one who is acquainted with the language

of David will not find anything extraordinary in

these words. It is well known that elsewhere,

David, under the titles "Holy One" and "Pious

One," means no other than himself, and one sees

clearly that here, in this very Psalm, he praises the

help of God, which has saved him from the peril of

death menaced by Saul, has thrown his lot into the

pleasantest places, and has given him a fair inhe-

ritance. At that time, it was then not without good

reason that he hoped and prayed: " Thou wilt not

leave my soul (me) in hell (the kingdom of the

dead), nor sufi^er Thy pious one (David) to see cor-

ruption (the grave), but wilt sooner grant him a

longer life, that he may benefit by Thy promised

mercies." Elsewhere, David again speaks of a long

life: "No brother can save the other from death,

though he live long, and see not corruption."

Therefore, " not to see corruption," does not mean" not to die at all," or " not to be dead for ever,"

but simply " not to die immediately," or " not to

die soon," in short, it means " to live longer." For

he says directly afterwards of those who shall not

see corruption, " It will be seen that these wise

ones will sometime (at last) die, like unto the fools."

43

And elsewhere: "Where is one who liveth and

shall not see death, and shall save his soul from

death?" Therefore, Paul, your first proposition

that the Psalm speaks of one who shall not, or shall

never see corruption, is incorrect; and your infer-

ence that the Psalm speaks not of David, is also

false. What should induce us to depart from David

himself, when, through the whole Psalm, he speaks

of himself, and invariably uses the dedicatory words

—I, my, with my soul, etc.; and how could David

imagine or expect, when he speaks in this manner,

that any one should think of Jesus of Nazareth, a

man who was not born ? In your other argument,

Paul, you seem to have forgotten that which you

wanted to prove, for your main point, which should

have been proved, you take for granted in the ante-

cedent without proof. Now the principal point

to be proved was, according to your own words,

that '* God has awakened Jesus in such wise that he

henceforth shall not return to the grave." In your

other argument, you accept as the antecedent that

God has awakened Jesus, and thus conclude that

the Psalm says of Jesus that he did not see corrup-

tion. Surely it cannot be called proving—to accept

that which is to be proved, without proof, as the

antecedent. Nothing can come of this but an idle

arguing in a circle. You say: " God has awakened

Jesus." I ask: "How can you prove it?" Youanswer: " Because he is the same of whom David

says that he shall not see corruption." I ask

:

"Why should David necessarily mean Jesus, and

44

how do we know that Jesus did not see corruption ?"

You answer: "Because he was awakened; for

he whom God has awakened, has not seen corrup-

tion."

Section XXXV.

I do not pretend to assert that the thoughts of

the Antiochians, whilst listening to the speech of

Paul, were the same as my own, but as in these

days we must often be Antiochians, and must listen

to Paul's evidence of the Resurrection and the

Christian religion, I candidly declare that however

honestly I go to work, I cannot draw any other

inference from it ; and every one who has so far

advanced in thinking as to be able to resolve a wild

discourse into common- sense conclusions, and thus

test it, will agree with me, that no other deduction

can be wrung from the speech of Paul. Thus it is

quite clear that the old Scripture evidence of the

resurrection of Jesus never can stand proof before

the judgment-seat of sound reason, and only con-

tains a miserable and palpable petitionem principii

per circvlum.

Now these evidences of Stephen and Paul are

the two most important and circumstantial in the

New Testament, and that which is introduced in

the second and third chapters of the Acts of the

Apostles to enforce, through Scripture, the assump-

45

tion of the Resurrection contains nothing new,

nothing to distinguish it from these two testimonies

;

therefore, it will be unnecessary to revert to it again.

I shall, however, examine later on the Old Testa-

ment Scripture proofs brought forward by the

Evangelists. By what I have stated above I think

every one will see thus much: that if one cannot in

good faith presuppose the main point from the

New Testament to be proved, that is to say, the

phrase :" This saying refers to Jesus of Nazareth,"

not one of the other Scripture sayings prove any-

thing. They naturally refer to quite different

persons, times, and occurrences. Among the

Evangelists none introduce so many Scripture

quotations as Matthew. Yet nothing is more

manifest to such as have searched the pages of

Scripture, than that they are either not to be found

there at all, or not in those books from which they

claim to be derived, or else the words are altered.

To a rational mind they, one and all, contain

nothing in themselves of the matter on account

of which Matthew introduces them, and when

read with the context, they cannot be drawn over

to it otherwise than by a mere quibble in a

forced allegory. This is particularly noteworthy

where Jonas is quoted as a sign of the future

resurrection of Jesus. How can any sensible

person attach such a signification to any such

fore-given signs ? I read that there was a prophet

Jonas who would not preach repentance to the

heathen Ninevites and fled to the sea. Am I,

46

therefore, to infer that there was a Jesus who came

from Nazareth, who would preach repentance to the

Israelities, and therefore did not fly to the sea, but

went willingly to Jerusalem to suffer and to die ?

I read further that Jonas was thrown by the sailors

into the sea during a storm, and passed three days

and three nights, alive, inside a whale. Am I,

therefore, to conclude that Jesus of Nazareth passed,

not three days and three nights, but one day and two

nights, not in the sea but on the earth, not alive but

truly dead in a grave in a rock? My skill in

drawing conclusions does not extend so far.

Sectiok XXXVI.

It has hitherto been shown that the new system

adopted by the Apostles, of a spiritual suffering

Saviour, who was to arise from the dead, and after

his ascension to return from Heaven with great

power and glory, is false in its first main principle,

namely, the resurrection from the dead ; 1st. Be-

cause the previously-cited evidence of the Romanguards, in Matthew, is highly incongruous, and is

nowhere alluded to by any other Evangelists or

Apostles. On the contrary, it is contradicted by

many circumstances. So that the saying, which

had become current among the Jews, namely,

" that the disciples had come by night and stolen

the body, and afterwards said he was risen," re-

47

mains not only quite possible, but highly probable.

2ndly. Because the disciples themselvesj as wit-

nesses of the resurrection of Jesus, not only vary

outrageously in the principal points of their as-

sertion, but they also, in manifold ways, distinctly

and grossly contradict one another. 3rdly. Their

proof of the resurrection and of their whole system

by the Old Testament writings, and by a number

of things which have nothing to do with it, is madeup of scolding and scoffing, distortion of Scripture

sentences, false conclusions, and Petitionibus Prin-

cipii. Now then, we come to the other principle of

the new system of the Apostles, namely: that Jesus,

after his ascension, will soon return from Heaven

with power and great glory.

48

CHAPTER IV.

The Doctrine of the Return of yesus.

Section XXXVII.

The better to understand this pretence and to

discover its falsity, I will mention a few facts.

First, it should be known that the Jews themselves

had two different systems of their Messiah. Most

of them, indeed, expected in such a person a

worldly sovereign, who should release them from

slavery, and make other nations submissive to

them. In this system there was nothing but

splendour and glory, no previous suffering, no

return ; the long-wished-for kingdom was to begin

immediately upon the coming of the Messiah.

However, there were some few others who said

their Messiah would come twice, and each time

after quite a different manner. The first time he

would appear in misery, and would suffer and die.

The second time he would come in the clouds of

Heaven, and receive unlimited power. The JewTrypho in Justin Martyr acknowledges this two-

fold future of the Messiah. It is to be faund in the

Talmud and also in other Jewish writings. The

49

more modem Jews have even made a double

Messiah out of this twofold coming ; the one of the

tribe of Joseph, who was to suffer and die; the other

of the tribe of Judah, descended from David, whowas to sit upon his throne and reign. The Jews,

at the time of their bondage, had indeed tried so

hard to strengthen the sweet hope they entertained

of a deliverer, by so many Scripture passages,

that, with the assistance of pharisaic allegories,

they found their Messiah in countless sayings, and

in almost all directions. For this reason, the

passages, which in themselves contained no such

allusion, ran so contrary to one another that in

order to make them all rhyme together the Jews

could help themselves in no other way than byimagining a twofold Messiah. It was, for example,

believed that Zacharias referred to the Messiah

when he said : " Hop for joy thou daughter of Zion,

shout thou daughter of Jerusalem : behold thy king

will come to thee : the same is just, and a saviour."

But then, again, he describes him as " poor," and" riding upon an ass." Thus there were manyother passages in Scripture which, on account of

some circumstances, appeared to them to speak of

the hoped-for king and saviour, but which still

intermingled his miserable condition, oppression,

and persecution. In contradiction to this, Daniel,

in his nocturnal visions, sees the following : "Andthere came one in the clouds of Heaven like the

son of a man and came unto the aged one (one

stricken in years), and to the same was given all

E

50

power and honour, and kingdom, that all nations

and tongues should serve him." Here we have

nothing but power and grandeur, as in several other

passages which, according to Jewish ideas, relate

to a promised saviour. In consequence, the few

Jews, who combined the two accounts, could hardly

fail to alight upon the notion that a Messiah would

come twice, and each time after quite a different

manner. One sees for oneself that the apostles of

this system, however few there were, made use of

it all the more because their first and most palatable

system had, on account of its failure, been set aside;

and one sees also that, after the death of Jesus as

Messiah, they promised themselves a glorious

future from him.

Further, it should be known that the Jews im-

agined the resurrection of the dead would take

place after the second coming of the Messiah, when

he would judge the living and the dead, and then

the kingdom of Heaven or of the next world would

begin, by which, however, they did not, like the

Christians of the present day, mean a blissful or

miserable eternity after the end of the world ; but

they meant the glorious reign of the Messiah upon

this earth, which should indemnify them for their

previous and then existing condition. The apostles

were therefore obliged, in their new creed, to pro-

mise a different return of Christ from the clouds, bywhich all that they had vainly hoped for would be

fulfilled, and by which his faithful followers, after

the judgment had been passed, would come into

51

the inheritance of the kingdom. If the apostles

had not promised such a glorious return of Christ,

no man would have concerned himself about their

Messiah, or have listened to their preachings.

This glorious kingdom was the solace of the

Israelites in all their tribulations; in the certain

hope of it they bore every trial, and they willingly

gave up all they had, because they expected to

receive it back an hundredfold.

Section XXXVIII.

Now if the apostles had at that time said that it

would be about seventeen, eighteen, or several

hundred years before Christ would return in the

clouds of Heaven and begin his kingdom, people

would simply have laughed at them, and would

naturally have thought that by their placing the

fulfilment of the promise far beyond the lives of so

many men and generations, they were only seeking

to hide their own and their master's disgrace. NoJew separated the second coming of the Messiah so

far from the first; and as the first was bound to have

taken place on account of the second, there was no

good reason why the kingdom of glory should

not begin soon. Who would have parted with his

means of subsistence or his fortune for the sake of it,

and made himself poor before the time and in vain?

Whence could the apostles have drawn the means

52

which they were to divide so plentifully among

their new converts ? It was then imperative that

the apostles should promise the second coming of

Christ and the kingdom of glory in good time, or

at all events during the lifetime of the then existing

Jews. The sayings also which they impute to

Christ point to his return before that generation of

Jews had passed away. In the twenty-fourth chapter

of Matthew, when Jesus is speaking of the des-

truction of Jerusalem and of his second coming,

the disciples ask him, " Tell us when shall these

things be ? What will be the sign of thy coming

and of the end of the world ? " By the end of the

world they meant, according to Jewish language,

the end of the time previous to the kingdom of the

Messiah, or the abolishment of the present kingdom,

which was supposed to be directly connected with

the new kingdom. So the apostles and evangelists

impute to their master an answer which commences

by warning them against any false Christs or Mes-

siahs who might pretend to be himself before the

end came. He says :" But immediately after the

tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened,

and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars

will fall from Heaven, and the powers of the

heavens will quake ;" that is, in the prophetic

language of the Hebrews, that the existing world

or the existing constitution of the Jewish republic

should come to an end. Jesus continues : " Andthen will appear the sign of the son of man in

heaven, and then all the generations of earth shall

53

strike their breasts and shall see the son of mancoming in the clouds of heaven with great power

and glory," etc. "Verily I say unto you, this gener-

ation shall not pass away until all this has happened.

But of the day and of the hour no man knows.

Therefore watch, for ye know not at what hour

your Lord cometh. Therefore be prepared, for the

son of man will come at an hour when you look

not for him. But when the son of man cometh in

his glory and all the holy angels with him, then

will he sit upon the seat of his glory, and all nations

will be assembled before him, and he will separate

them one from the other, like as a shepherd sepa-

rates the sheep from the goats."

According to these speeches, the visible coming of

Christ in the clouds of heaven to the kingdom of

his glory is clearly and exactly appointed to take

place, soon after the imminent tribulations of the

Jews, and before " this generation," or those Jews

who were alive at the time of Jesus, had passed

away or died. And although no one was to knowof the day or the hour, yet those who were then

alive, particularly the disciples, were to watch and

be prepared, because he should comQ at an hour

when they were not expecting him. That this was

the true meaning of the words of the evangelist is

clearly shown by another passage from the same;

for after Jesus had said he must go up to Jerusalem

and would there be killed and would rise again, he

adds :" For it surely will come to pass that the

son of man shall come in the glory of his Father,

54

with his angels, and then will he reward each one

according to his works. Verily I say unto you,

there be some standing among you ivho shall not taste

of death until they have seen the son of man come into

his kingdom."

No speech in this world can more distinctly fix

the time of the visible glorious return of Christ to

a certain period and within the bounds of a not

very distant one. Some of those persons who then

stood upon the same spot around Jesus were not to

die before his return, but were to see him come

into his kingdom.

Section XXXIX.

But as Christ unfortunately did not come in the

clouds of heaven within the appointed time, nor

even after many centuries had passed away, people

try now-a-days to remedy the failure of the promise

by giving to its words an artificial but very meagre

signification. The words " this generation shall not

pass away " must needs be tortured into meaning

that the Jewish people or Jewish nation shall not pass

away. By such an interpretation they think that

the promise may still stand good. Thus they say

the Jewish nation has not passed away, therefore

the appointed time for the second coming of Christ

has not elapsed. But the Jews are fostered and

cherished all too well in Christendom for that gentle

nation to pass away, and it seems as though one

had calculated upon the subterfuge being as neces-

55

sary many centuries hence, as it is now. But

neither now nor in future can it ever warrant a safe

refuge. Matthew's words, or, if you prefer it,

Christ's own words quoted in the foregoing passage,

can never be reconciled to the mind, because the

people who in one particiJar spot stood around

Jesus before his suffering, could certainly not signify

the whole Jewish nation after many successive

centuries. Neither is it possible that any of them

have not yet tasted of death ! To assert this one

would be obliged, as a last resource, to invent an

everlasting Jew, who had existed from the time of

Jesus. I will now proceed' to show from the quoted

words themselves, that the fundamental word '^evea

does not at all signify a nation or a people. The

people or the nation of the Jews, or any other

people or nation, is expressed by the words ^ao? and

eOvo'i, but the word '^evea in the New Testament and

everywhere else, means generation, or, people who

are living together in the world at the same time,

and who by their exit from this stage, make room

for other generations.

Section XL.

It will be remembered that in the beginning of

the gospel of Matthew, are counted, from Abraham

to David <yevea\ Tea-a-ape<s KaiSeKu, fourteen generations,

and again from David to the Babylonian captivity,

yeveal recro-a/ie? KaiSeKa, fourteen generations; lastly

56

from the Babylonian captmty to Christ 'yeveal

Tea-a-ape'i KaiSexa, fourteen generations, all of which

are also named by Matthew in the table of

generations. Now any other generations besides

those existing were called TrapwxVM-^^O'h erepai, apxcuai

yeveal, old generations, those which had passed

away. The generation living at the time of Jesus

was auTf) yevea, the present generation, or this genm'-

ation, which would also in its own time, pass awayjrapixdrj. Jesus often describes the then existing

one as a wicked, adulterous, unbelieving generation,

because it had calumniated both him and John, and

had required a sign from heaven. He said that the

Ninevites and the Queen of Sheba would fare better

at the day of judgment than this generation, which

had heard a far greater prophet than Jonas, and a

wiser than Solomon, and yet had despised him.

Jesus particularly includes his own disciples in this

generation, and reproves them as a faithless and

perverse generation, when they could not drive out

a certain devil ; and he asks, *' How long shall I

be with you ? " In every other part of the NewTestament, the word yevea has the same signification,

as every one can see who pleases to wander through

the fans of concordance. The seventy interpreters,

the Apocrypha, Philo, Josephus, and also the pro-

fane Scribes attribute exactly the same meaning to

it. With the Hebrews, particularly, it is nothing

else than the Hebrew -m Dor. Thus Solomon

says, " Dor holech vedor ba,^' jevea -KopeveTai ical yevea

epxerat, " one generation passes away, the other

57

comes." Moses says that God allowed the Israelites

to wander to and fro in the wilderness forty years

long, until the whole generation which had done

evil in the sight of the Lord had passed away,

ecos i^av'i]\a)6j] iraaa r} yevea, oi iroiovvTa to. irovepa. Also

in another passage ; ew? o5 Zihrea-e Rcia-a yeveh avBp&v

iroKefiitTTMv. And again, when referring to those who

had lived at the time of Joshua, it is written, that

the whole generation had been gathered to its

fathers, ical Traa-a fj yevea iiceivr] jrpoaeTed'qa-av 'jrpb'i tou?

Trarepa^ avr&v.

Section XLI.

It is therefore irrefutable that in Jesus' speech in

Matthew "this generation " avrr) yevea means nothing

more than " the Jews who lived at the time of

Jesus." These were not to pass away or die until

he should " return in the clouds with great power

and glory." Now as it is undeniable that nothing

of the kind happened, the fact that the Jewish

nation has not passed away but still exists is a sorry

cloaking to the falsity of the prediction. " This

generation," which could and would pass away, can-

not possibly be the entire nation with all its gener-

ations at different times. Neither Jesus nor the

Jews ever thought that their people or nation would

pass away, but that one generation after the other

would pass away was acknowledged by Moses,

Joshua, Solomon, and was known to every one,

38

from the common experience of mortality. It

might then he said of a generation that it should

pass away, and consequently the time of a future

occurrence might, through the limit of the life of a

present generation, be appointed ; but no Jew said

of the whole Jewish nation that it would pass away;

therefore the time of a future occurrence could not

be appointed upon the passing away of the whole

nation. Indeed, a fulfilment of a particular

promised thing cannot, after its hoped-for reality,

be decided through an invulnerable thing, a thing

which perpetually continues from century to cen-

tury, unto eternity. Were I standing beside the

Danube, the Elbe, or the Rhine, and, knowing all

the currents of the stream, were I to say to any one:

This river shall not pass away until I come again

;

would it not be equivalent to saying, "I shall never

come again"? To assert that " the whole Jewish

nation, with all its continual generations, shall not

pass away until Christ comes again," would be a

nice way of appointing his return in the clouds

!

To any Jew one might as well say :" He will not

come again until the river Jordan has passed away,

until eternity is at an end." Therefore it is im-

possible that " this generation " in Christ's predic-

tion should have meant anything but "the Jews

who were then living."

Further, what could more clearly have pointed

out the sense and object of the words than the fol-

lowing speech of Jesus in another passage : " there

be some among you standing here by me who shall

59

not taste of death until they see the son of mancome into his kingdom?" The meaning here is

identically the same as that in the foregoing mode

of expression: "this generation shall not pass

away ;" for those who stood there, by Jesus, were

certain persons of that generation, or, of the then

existing Jews, and. they were not to taste of death

until they saw him come again in the clouds ; and,

in so far as the then existing generation of Jews is

(in the latter expression) limited by the lives of

persons named, the thing is even more particularly

and exactly decided, so that any one who could

still raise objections to a meaning so circum-

stantially determined, must have lost all sense of

shame. It is certain that in the Old Testament the

first coming of the Messiah is not anything like so

exactly fixed to a particular time, as is the second

coming in the New Testament ; and a Jew can use,

as a pretext for the non-appearance of his hoped-for

Messiah, much fairer and more reasonable inter-

pretations and arguments than a Christian can for

the non-return of Christ.

Section XLII.

In going through the New Testament, one sees

that the disciples had this conception of the pro-

mised return of Jesus, and that they imparted

to the newly converted that it would take place

very soon, indeed, during their own lifetime. The

60

disciples are represented by Luke as enquiring of

Jesus after his resurrection :" Lord, wilt thou not

at this time restore the kingdom to these Israel-

ites ? " Again, in their epistles, they pretend that

the return of Christ is near at hand, and exhort

the faithful to watch and be ready, as it would come

to pass in their own time, aye, and might come at

any hour or moment, that they might be found in

a condition to take part in the kingdom of glory.

James likewise encourages them thus: "Be then

patient, dear brethren, until the return of the Lord.

. . . Be ye also patient, for the return of the

Lord is near at hand. . . . Behold, the judge

standeth at the door." Paul writes to the Thessa-

lonians, that although some among them had gone

to sleep before the return of the Lord, they would

be carried to meet him when he appeared in the

clouds, at the same time as those who then remained

alive. He says : "I would not have you ignorant,

dear brethren, concerning them which are asleep,

that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no

hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose

again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will

God bring with him. For this we say unto you

by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive

and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not

prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord

himself shall descend from Heaven with a war-

shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with

the sackbut of Grod : and the dead in Christ shall

rise first, then we which are alive and remain shall

61

be caught up together in the clouds to meet the

Lord in the air : and so shall we ever be with the

Lord. Therefore comfort ye one another with

these words. But of the times and the seasons,

brethren, you have no need that I write unto you.

For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the

Lord so Cometh as a thief in the night ; for whenthey shall say Peace and safety, then sudden

destruction cometh upon them as travail upon a

woman with child; and they shall not escape.

But ye, brethren, are not in darkness that that day

should overtake you as a thief."

In the same manner Paul says to the Corinthians

:

" Behold, I tell you a secret. We shall indeed not

all fall asleep, but we shall all be changed. In a

moment, in the twinkling of an eye at the last

trump ; for the trump will sound, and the dead

shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be

changed."

Section XLIII.

It is then not to be wondered at, that the early

Christians after such plain words from Jesus him-

self, and from his apostles, should daily have looked

for this return of Christ in the clouds, or that they

should have been in constant expectation of the

glorious kingdom, believing that at least some

among them would be alive at the time of its com-

mencement. Can we blame them for thinking the

62

time too long, when one after another fell asleep

without living to witness it ? Is it surprising that

scoffers should have come at last and said, " Where

is the promise of his return ? for from the days

when our fathers fell asleep, all remains as it was at

the beginning of the creation?" It must have

come to the ears of Paul, that the Thessalonians,

from his own first epistle and the speeches of

others, considered the retm-n of Christ to be so very

near, that it would be impossible to redeem the

promise. So in his next epistle he speaks in

mysterious words of a "falling off" of a "man of

sin," of the "son of perdition," of the "godless one

who must come first," who was even then at work,

but was detained, and when at last he revealed

himself, the Lord, would put him to death with the

breath of his mouth, and would destroy him by the

brightness of his coming. He therefore prays the

Thessalonians : ''Be not soon shaken in mind, nor

be troubled neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by

letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at

hand." But this dark dilatory consolation could

not be depended upon for any length of time, for

even should the " son of perdition " be intended to

represent the Emperor Caligula, or any of his suc-

cessors (as many think) he must soon have been

revealed. Why was he not destroyed by the

" brightness of Christ's coming " ? If, on the other

hand, by " the son of perdition " was meant one

who belonged to a later century, the prediction of

Jesus himself that " some of those standing by him

63

should not taste of death, until they had seen him

come into his kingdom " "would not have been ful-

filled. And the promise which Paul himself made

to the Thessalonians and Corinthians, viz.: that

some among them would not be fallen asleep when

Christ with the trump of God should come in the

clouds to his kingdom, would not have been ful-

filled. The truth is that compare Paul's words

with whichever account you will, they cannot

accord with, or be applied to, a single one of them,

and almost the only conclusion you can come to is

that to draw himself out of the difficiJty with

honour, he carefully concealed himself in the dark,

so that the delay of the return of Christ could be

placed farther and farther away at pleasure.

Section XLIV.

Our good Paul, however, does not thoroughly

understand the art of giving evasive answers.

Peter is a better hand at it. He says :" Know

that in the last days scoffers will come and will say:

Where is the promise of his return? for from the

days the fathers fell asleep, everything remains as

it was from the beginning of creation." After

mentioning some things which have nothing to do

with the subject, he continues : "I would not have

you ignorant, beloved, that one day with the Lord

is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one

64

day. The Lord is not slack concerning Ms pro-

mise, as some men count slaekness, but is long-

sufifering to ns-ward. . . . But the day of the

Lord will come as a thief in the night," etc. Even

at that time there seem to have been scoffers, for

Peter warns his faithful followers against them, and

tells them not to be persuaded by them. If then

after seventeen hundred years there should come

scoffers who ask : Where is now his return ? Peter

has already answered in advance, that they have

only waited a little over one-and-a-half of the Lord's

days more than was due, and that the delay was

owing to his " long-suffering." And if the return

of Christ should not occur for another couple of

thousand years, Peter has again met the scoffer with

the answer that his calculation is wrong, the two

thousand years were only a couple of days which

Christ has spent for their benefit in heaven before

he let himself down. But such like answers will,

I fear, give little satisfaction to sensible honest

men, and even less to the scoffers. The thing

which cannot be supported by better props than

these must be in a very bad way.

What business here has the verse from Psalm

ex. ? According to the evangelists, Christ so

distinctly fixed his second coming that some of

those who then stood round him were to be living

when he returned in the clouds. It would then be

absurd to push his return so far ahead, because a

thousand years with God are as one day; for the

return, you see, was not fixed according to God's

Go

days, but according to man's days, namely, the

days of those men who stood around. In any case

it is absurd to measure the time by Grod's days,

even were they a hundred thousand human years

long; but if this was to be comprehended according

to human understanding, why then did Peter make

a human day into a thousand years?

Section XLV.

Here, then, there was no alternative but that of

burying the exact appointment of the time in

oblivion, as though it had never been fixed at all,

and instead of it to make a terminus so long that it

can be extended to eternity; for three hundred

and sixty-five thousand human years would then

have to elapse before one of God's years could come

to an end, and yet the delay could not be called a

delay,^ because either the " long-suffering" or some

other peculiarity of Grod would be sufiicient reason

why one ought not to enquire so very particularly

into His foresight. His prophecies, and His truth.

The apostles, meanwhile, gained this much by the

early foolish Christianity: that once the faithful

had fallen asleep and the real terminus had been

well passed over, the succeeding Christians and

fathers of the Church could by idle hopes and pro-

mises go on keeping up the delusion. We read

that John, one of the apostles and evangelists, who

at the time of Jesus was very young, and who

lived the longest, pretends to be he who might

F

66

perhaps live to see the return of Christ; He intro-

duces, Peter as saying i.to Jesus: "Lord, and what

shall this man do ?'' and Jesus as answering : "If

I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to

thee?" Jesus,- however, as not having said that

he should not die but only " If I will that he tarry

tiU I come, what is that to thee?" Accordingly,

John concludes his Revelation thus :" He which

testifieth these things saith, ' Surely I come quickly.

Amen. Even so come, Lord Jesus." *

After the apostles, the first fathers of the Church

still continued to hope that Christ would appear

and begin his kingdom upon earth in their owntimes ; and thus it went on from century to

century, until at last the unaccomplished time

of Christ's second coming became forgotten, and

our present theologians pass nimbly over the

matter because it is not beneficial to their purposes;

they also try to cultivate a very dififerent object in

the return of Christ in the clouds of Heaven, to that

which he himself and his apostles taught.

Now-a-days, when people read more what is in the

catechism and the Compendiis Tlieologim than what is

in the Bible, how many are there who ever remem-

ber that the openly appointed time for the second

coming of Jesus has long passed by, and that con-

sequently one of the mainstays of Christianity is

shown to be utterly worthless ? The two propositions

* TLe identity of the author of the Apocalypse with the author

of the Pourth Gospel has been abundantly disproved.

—

^Editoe.

67

and articles of faith: "Christ has arisen from the

dead," and " Christ will return to his kingdom in

the clouds of heaven," are indisputably the pillars

upon which Christianity and the new creed of the

apostles are built. If Christ has not arisen, then,

as Paul himself declares, our belief is vain ; and if

Christ neither has nor does come again to reward

the faithful in his kingdom, then is our belief as

useless as it is false. My readers will see that in

the contemplation hitherto made I have avoided

touching unessential contingencies, but have forced

my way right up to the substance and main point of

Christianity. I have compared the old system of

the apostles, viz., worldly deliverance of the Israelites^

with the purposes of Jesus in his teaching and

behaviour in the account given by the evangelistSj

and have found well-grounded reasons for believing

that they agree ; and that it was only on account

of failure and disappointed hope that the apostles

abandoned their £rst creed. Also that their altered

new religious structure of a spiritual saviour of the

human race was erected upon two pretended facts

given as articles of faith, which, by the manifold

contradictions of witnesses and the course of events

themselves, are shown to be strikingly fictitious.

I should be glad if every sensible upright reader

would search every book that has been written on

the truth of the Christian religion, and judge for

himself whether anything therein to be found can

remove in the smallest degree the objections above

stated, or can bring forward anything by which

68

they must fall to the ground. I myself read the

most and the best of these books before I had

begun to doubt ; since then reflection and earnest

thought have given rise to doubts, and I say that

not one of the writers of these works has been

able to remove one of these doubts—a great manyof which they have not even touched upon. In-

deed, these supposed champions of Christianity skip

all too softly over its real foundation. They ex-

haust the power of their minds and language upon

unessential things, which, although they impart to

the religion a brilliancy very fascinating to people

who are incapable of sifting fundamentally, yet are

either in themselves improbable, or do not afford

any sure proof of the truth of Christianity.

CHAPTER IV.

07^ Miracles and Prophecies.

Section XLVI.

The essential parts of Christianity are the articles

of faith by the denial or ignorance of which wf

cease to be Christians. The principal of these are

:

the spiritual deliverance through the suffering and

death of Christ ; Resurrection jfrom death in con-

firmation of the sufficient suffering of Christ ; and,

the return of Christ for reward and punishment, as

the fruit and consequence of the deliverance. Hewho grapples with or disproves these first principles

attacks the substance (or essence) of the object.

By unessential things in reference to religion I

mean first of all, the miracles, to which nevertheless

such particular importance is attached by the

Christian religion. No one can affirm that miracles

of themselves establish a single article of faith. If

we granted that articles of faith carried with them

conviction and inherent credibility, how should wedare to require miracles in order to believe them ?

If we granted that the resurrection had been proved

to be true by the most undoubted and unanimous

70

witnesses, as in all fairness it ought to be, we could

surely believe it without any assistant miracle. If

we granted that Christ really did return in the

clouds of Heaven, as according to promise he ought

to have done, we should certainly want no miracles

to prove it.

On the other hand, ifwe grant that the truth of the

above-mentioned events is based partly upon suspi-

cious and contradictory evidence, and partly upon

occurrences which manifestly never took place, or

that the doctrines contain contradiction, no miracles

can mend the matter, first, because miracles are un-

natural events, as improbable as they are incred-

ible, reqTiiring as much examination as that which

they are supposed to prove ; secondly, because they

contain nothing in themselves from which the infer-

ence could be draV7n:—this and that has happened:

ergo.) this or that doctrine is true: ergo, this or that

is no contradiction.

Section XLVII.

I have said that to discover whether miracles

are true requires as much investigation as the

thing they are supposed to prove. In reading

the history of Moses and the succeeding times,

we have already seen that it cost,the writer neither

intellect, skill, nor trouble to concoct miracles, and

that the reader requires still less intellect to believe

ri

them. The historian kills all Pharaoh's cattle three

times running. Each time not a single beast is

left alive ; but in his fertile imagination there are

always fresh ones ready to be again demolished.

Where they all came from is quite immaterial to

him. He makes the Israelites take all their cattle

away with them, not leaving a single hoof behind,

and yet when he wants to perform miracles, they are

every moment suffering from hunger, so that meat

must needs rain from heaven. In three hours and

on a very dark night he brings thirty hundred

thousand men with women and babes, aged and

sick, lame and blind, tents and furniture, waggons

and harness, three hundred thousand oxen, six hun-

dred thousand sheep, safe and sound over the

bottom of a sea which at the very least must have

been a Crerman mile in breadth ; a bottom which

on account of weed and mud in one place, sand

and coral branches in another, rocks here and islets

there, is impassable. He does not trouble himself

to reflect whether the thing is possible. Enough

!

he imagines and writes them safe across in a single

night-watch! To light his conquering Israel he

bids the sun to stand still for twenty-four hours.

Into,what sort of condition the outer world would

have been thrown in consequence, is immaterial.

He has but to say the word, aaid the sun stops with

the whole machinery of the world. He blows and

shouts down the strongest walls, although he can-

not shoutsaway the aggravating iron chariots any

more than', he can bid them stop. He changes one

72

thing into another according to his pleasure ; rods

into serpents, water into blood, dust into lice. Hebids water to tower up without support, contrary,

to its nature, and with a blow of his rod draws

water from a dry rock. He creates a world in

which men fly through the air, and in which an ass,

an angel and a man hold a conversation together.

In short, all nature is at his command, he shapes

and orders it as he pleases ; but, as in a dream,

full of fabulous tales, a Utopia, without order, rules,

harmony, truth, or sense. The most childish writer

could make such miracles as these, and in order to

believe them one would have to abandon all the

maxims of a healthy mind. The historians, indeed,

betray themselves by owning that the miracles, at

the time they occurred, never found any faith

among the Israelites.

Section XLVIII.

The miracles of the New Testament are not so

outrageous and disgusting throughout, as those of

the Old. They consist chiefly in the healing of the

lame, blind, deaf, sick, and of those possessed of

devils; but yet the writers entangle themselves

hopelessly here and there in glaring contradiction,

and nowhere do they accord to us a report of cir-

cumstances and reliable investigation, from which

73

one could judge whether the thing supposed to

have happened was a bond fide miracle. They write

down their assertions in the most vapid and dull

manner, and then set a seal of faith upon them

:

" Whoso believeth shall be saved, whoso believeth

not shall be damned." Jesus himself could not

perform miracles where the people had not faith

beforehand, and when sensible men, the learned

and rulers of those times, demanded of him a

miracle which could be submitted to examination,

he, instead of granting the request, began to upbraid

them ; so that no man of this stamp could believe

in him. It was not until thirty to sixty years after

the death of Jesus, that people began to write an

account of the performance of these miracles, in a

language which the Jews in Palestine did not

understand. And this was at a time when the

Jewish nation was in a state of the greatest

disquietude and confusion, and when very few

of those who had known Jesus were still alive.

Nothing then was easier for them than to invent as

many miracles as they pleased, without fear of their

writings being readily understood or refuted. It

had been impressed upon all converts from the be-

ginning that it was both advantageous and soul-

saving to believe, and to put the mind captive

under the obedience of faith ; and consequently there

was as much credulity among them as there was'•' fia fraus'''' or "deception from good motives"

among their teachers ; and both of these, as is well

known, prevailed in the highest degree in the

74

early ChEistian Church. Other religions,'.indeed,-

are quite as full of miracles;- the-heathen boasts of

many, so does the Turk; no religion is without

them, and this it is which also makes the Christian

miracles so doubtful, and provokes ' us to ask

:

'' Did the events really happen ? Were the attendant

circumstances such as are stated? Did they come to

pass naturally, or by craft, or by chance?" Those

who are conversant with the matter and the history

will see very well that I write the truth. But as

yet I do not require of those who have no know-

ledge of them, that they accord to me justice and

right. Meanwhile, I have beeir obliged to lay

before them the doubts which are apt to occur to

reasonable thinking men on reading the miracles of

the New Testament, so that if they do not knowhow to answer these doubts, they may at least con-

fess that miracles are not such certain facts that one

can prove and establish other incredible narratives

or doctrines by them, and that consequently those

who would buUd Christianity upon miracles give it

nothing firm, deep or substantial- for- a foundation.

Section XLIX.

It is always a sign that a doctrine or history

possesses no depth of authenticity when one is

obliged to resort to miracles in order to prove its

75

truth. Miracles do not possess in or by themselves

any principle containing a single article of faith or

conclusive fact. It follows not because a prophet

has performed miracles that therefore he has

spoken the truth, because false prophets and magi-

cians Eilso performed signs and wonders, and false

Christs performed miracles by which even the elect

might be deceived. It foUows not because Jesus

restored sight to a blind man and healed a lame

one, ergo God is threefold in person, ergo Jesus is

a real God and man. It follows not because Jesus

awakened Lazarus from death that j therefore, he

also must have arisen from death. Why need webe drawn away from the main point and referred to

extraneous irrelevant things, when we have found

marks enough upon the thing itself by which what

is true can be distinguished from what is false, and

when, these same marks cannot be obliterated by

any amount of accessory miracles ?

The unerring signs of truth and falsehood are

clear, distinct consistency and contradiction. This

is also the case with revelation, in so far as that it

must, in common with other truths, be free from

contradiction. And just as little as miracles can

prove that twice two are five, or that- a triangle has

four angles, can a contradiction lying in the history

and dogmas of Christianity be removed by any

number of miracles. However many blind and

lame people Jesus and the apostles may have

healed, and howex^er many legions of devils they

may have driven out, they cannot thereby heal the

76

contradictions in their system of the Messiah, and

in their unsatisfactory evidences of his resurrection

and return. Contradiction is a devil and father of

lies, vp'ho refuses to be driven out either by fasting

and prayer, or by miracles. Let what will have

been done by these miracle-performing people, they

cannot thereby have made things happen which

did not happen, nor have made Christ return in

the clouds of Heaven before those who stood byhim had tasted of death.

No miracle can prove that the saying, "Out of

Egypt have I called my son," was spoken of Jesus

;

or that any prophet of the Bible ever said, "Heshall be called a Nazarene."

Section L.

What I have said of miracles, viz., that they

are of themselves uncertain and do not contain

the evidence of truth, I must also say of the

prophecies, upon the infallibility of which the

defenders of Christianity likewise insist. If a pro-

phecy is to be called infallible, I fairly demand

that it should state beforehand legibly, clearly, and

distinctly that which no man could previously have

known, and that the same should thereafter take

place at the time appointed, but that it should not

take place because it has been predicted. If, how-

ever, such a prophecy can only be verified through

77

allegorical interpretation of words and things ; if it

be only composed of dark and dubious words, and

the expressions it contains are commonplace, vague,

and uncertain ; if the matter was thought probable,

or was foreseen by human cunning; if it occurs

because it was predicted ; if the words used refer

to some other matter and are only applied to the

prophecy by a quibble ; if it is only written downafter the event has occurred ; if a prophetic book

or passage is given out to be older than it is; or

lastly, if the thing predicted does not take place at

all, then the prophecy is either doubtful or false.

If, then we judge by these rules and commence an

investigation of those Old Testament prophecies

which have been applied to the New Testament,

we shall find them to be worthless and false. Those

which are most clearly expressed never came to

pass, for example : that " the Messiah should sit

upon the seat of David on Mount Zion and reign

from one sea to another, even unto the end of the

world," and all besides that was prophesied of the

deliverer of Israel. Other prophecies are merely

adapted through quibbles, and in reality refer to

quite other things. I have recently given two

examples of them. Later on I will show that not

a single sentence from the Old Testament applied

by Matthew and others to the history of Jesus was

written in the sense ascribed to it. Other passages

again contain matters which are applied by the

apostles allegorically to Christ, such as the sign of

the prophet Jonas who was three days and three

78

nights inside of a whale; and also the saying, "Iwill be his father, he shall be my son." Before

such passages as these our present theologians have

no alternative but to take refuge in a circle, by

which I mean that they endeavour to prove the

truth of the New Testament and its doctrine

through the prophecies of the Old, and the things

said or meant in the Old Testament through the

New, that is to say, through St. Matthew, St. Paul,

etc., etc. With a little extra ingenuity, manypassages could thus be applied to Christ, in order

that "what was written might be fulfilled," such as

" Behold thy king cometh-—^riding upon an ass and

upon a colt, the foal of an ass."* In short, I mayaffirm that one cannot refer to a single quoted pro-

phecy that is not false ; or if you would have mespeak more mildly, I will only say that they are

all ambiguous and doubtful, and are not to be

accepted from writers who trifle with things and

words.

Section LI.

Thus it is easy to perceive how the conclusion

halts on all sides :

—

1st. Because the argument, drawn from predic-

tions which are no clearer or more distinct than those

above referred to in the New Testament, runs in a

circle and must commit a ''• petitionem principii."

* An example of fulfilment, because it was predicted.

79

The representation of Ghristianitj by Paul is—" Jesus ofJ Nazaretb is the son of Grod."

How so? -.. - ~

" Because it is -written : I -will be his father, and

he shall be mji son : thou art my son, this day have

I begotten thee."

But it appears to me that the former refers to

Solomon and the latter to David.

" And even were it so, a far higher personage

must be prefigured under David and Solomon."

Good. Bu-t how am I to know that ? Do the

writers of the Old Testament prove such to be the

case ?

" Not exactly. But the holy Apostle Paul, byinspiration of the Holy Ghost, shows us the master-

mind and the counter-image which is prefigured."

Then Paul's doctrine is true, because he says

so.

And thus it is with a hundred other passages,

principally with those from which one can draw no

conclusion in favour of Christianity unless one first

grants that they possess an allegorical meaning

pointing to Christianity.'

2nd. Even supposing the sense of the Old Testa-

ment passages by themselves to be rightly hit upon,

it still does not at all follow that Jesus of Naza-

reth was meant by them. Granted that the

Messiah was to come out of Bethlehem, are then

all those who spring from Bethlehem Messiahs ?

Granted the Messiah was to come out of Egypt, are

then all those who come out of Egypt Messiahs ?

80

Granted that he lived at Nazareth, can any one

who sojourns at Nazareth call himself the Messiah ?

We shall be answered " That is all very well, but

when so many, when all the signs are fulfilled in

one person, that person must be meant, and no

other." But here we relapse again into the same

old circle. The writers of the New Testament

noted the particularities attending the life of Jesus

(of which I have given some account before), and

then would fain make a Messiah put "of him. Toaccomplish this they pretended that these particu-

larities had been prophesied and fulfilled in him.

And as prophecies that really corresponded could

not be found, they, through quibbles and allegories,

twisted and turned this and that passage in the Old

Testament to suit their purpose. If, then, wecannot discover that any of those passages were

written in Jhe sense attributed to them, or that any

refer to Jesus in particular, it follows that we are

to believe in the meaning given to the prophecies

by the writers of the New Testament simply because

they say so.

3rd. It is a false conclusion that " This or that

has been predicted of the Jewish Messiah; ergo,

this or that was fulfilled in Jesus." I call that

surreptitiously sneaking past two propositions at

once, and just those actually in question. I should

conclude thus :" This or that has happened and

was predicted ; ergo, the prediction of that which

happened is fulfilled." For it must always be pre-

viously shown that this or that has happened with

81

regard to a certain person, and that such deed or

event was previously prophesied of that person.

Then only can -we accept the truth of the prophecy,

and grant that it has been fulfilled in the person.

Even Moses teaches us to conclude thus. But

those who begin by taking for granted that prophe-

cies must be true and must be ftdfiUed, those whodo not first show events to have really occurred,

but prove by prophecies supposed to be true, slyly

steal past both the points in question. Let us, for

instance, suppose it to have been prophesied of the

Messiah that he should perform miracles, restore

sight to the blind, make the lame walk, and that he

should arise from death. Does it follow that the

prophecy was a true one ?

Section LII.

Every attentive reader will readily perceive that

I look upon the many miracles handed down bythe apostles, their assumed honesty and piety in

relating them, their doctrines and lives, the martyr

deaths which they suffered, and upon which the

evidence of Christianity is chiefly grounded, as a

number of unessential secondary things, which do

not by any means make out the truth of the main

point. Even if I allowed it to remain undecided

whether or not each of these accounts taken singly

was undeniable, and capable of being proved, and

82

doubtful how things came about, it ia still clearly-

evident that none of them touch the substance of

the matter, or can solve the doubts and difficulties.

Many other religions have the same equivocal prin-

ciples of foundation, but the proofs these pretend to

contain of the truth of a religion are not conclusive,

and where there are visible marks of falsity, they

are impotent.

A thousand asserted miracles cannot clear up

and set straight one single evident contradiction

in the accounts of the Resurrection now before myeyes. All the asserted piety and holiness of the

apostles cannot convince me that Jesus visibly re-

turned with great power and glory, and began his

glorious kingdom upon earth before some of those

who stood round him had tasted of death. All the

martyrs with the unheard-of torments they endured

will not convince me that the passage, " Out of

Egypt have I called my son " refers to Jesus ; or

that the sentence, " He shall be called a Nazarene,"

stands in the existing writings of the Old Testa-

ment.

The fact that a number of people, however great,

have adopted one and the same religion, does not

show me that they were right in having done so,

and that they made their choice with due con-

sideration and with sense. As, then, no light can

be thrown upon the main point for me by any of

these things, and as they cannot clear away any of

my doubts, I do not see why I should allow myself

to be drawn out of my straight course by looking

83

into them more closely, nor do I think that myreaders will wish me to do so, but will be satisfied

if I touch only upon such as I may encounter on

the way, and which might perhaps hinder my pro-

gress. I will now then proceed to enquire into the

real object of the apostles in inventing and building

up their new doctrine, and how by degrees they

succeeded, and shall, by comparing fundamentally

all the circumstances, endeavour as far as possible

to discover it.

CHAPTER V.

The Worldly Ambition of the

Apostles.

Section LIIl.

The apostles were chiefly men of the lower class

and of small means, who gained their livelihood by

fishing and other trades. They probably knew

little or nothing beyond their occupation, although

it is possible that they may have been men whocombined study with business, and only resorted

to the latter in case of need, as was often the case

with Jews such as Paul, who, though so learned,

maintained himself occasionally by making tents.

Now when they resolved upon foUowiag Jesus,

they entirely forsook their trade and all connected

with it, hearkened to his teaching, and went about

everywhere with him, or from time to time were

sent by him to the towns of Israel to announce that

the kingdom of Heaven was near at hand, and

twelve of them were accordingly chosen to become

these messengers of joy. Here we do not require

deductions or inferences as to what may have

85

induced the apostles to forsake all and follow Jesus,

because the evangelists distinctly inform us that

they entertained hopes that the Messiah would

establish a kingdom, or become king of Israel, and

seat himself upon the throne of David. At the

same time Jesus himself gave them his promise

that they also should sit upon twelve thrones and

judge the twelve tribes of Israel. Indeed, they

already sat upon them so firmly in imagination,

that they began to dispute, rather prematurely,

among themselves as to who should have the first

place and the greatest power next to Jesus. One

of them wanted to sit at his right, the other at his

left. Meantime, they did not forget to remind

Jesus of their claims in having forsaken all and

followed him, nor to ask him what they should

receive for having done so. And when Jesus com-

forts them by saying that those who have left

fields, houses, etc., etc., for his sake shall receive

back an hundredfold, they are content, and only

wait anxiously for the time and the hour when his

kingdom should really begin. But this weary

waiting only lasted until the execution of Jesus,

which at once dashed all their idle hopes to the

ground ; and then they complain, " We hoped that

he would have delivered Israel !" It is clear, by

their own account, and therefore requires no further

proof, that the apostles and all the disciples were

induced by ambitious motives, by hopes of future

wealth and power, lands and worldly goods, to

follow Jesus as their Messiah and king. It is also

86

clear that they never abandoned these hopes and

aims as long as Jesus was alive, and even gave

vent to them after his death. So far, all this must

be acknowledged by every one. No one can, with-

out the greatest impudence, deny it. But now the

doctrine of the apostles of Jesus hurriedly under-

goes a change! Do the aims of the apostles

change likewise ? No, they build up a new doctrine

indeed, but only because their hopes have been

frustrated ; a doctrine of which immediately upon

the death of Jesus they had not even begun to

think, and which has every appearance of fictitious

invention ; therefore, we cannot believe otherwise

than that the apostles of Jesus retained their pre-

vious aims and purposes, and sought to bring

about their fulfilment as best ,they could, although

in a different manner. Had we not already in-

vestigated this new doctrine to discover whether it

were true or false, had we only been aware of the

previous state of mind and desires of the apostles,

namely, that they had hitherto been constantly

looking forward to worldly grandeur and advan-

tages in the kingdom of Jesus, which were put an

end to by his death, and that upon this failure they

brought out a new creed of Jesus as a spiritual,

suffering Saviour, which until some time afterwards

had never entered their heads, and that they then

set themselves up as messengers and preachers of

this gospel, we should still have justly and strongly

suspected them to have been actuated by the old

ambitious aim in their altered creed ; because it

87

is mucli more probable that men should continue

to act from exactly the same motives by which

they have undeniably and invariably been actuated

before, than that they should abandon them and

take up others. But we have pursued a straighter

course; we have, a short time ago, examined the

foundation of this new structure thoroughly and by

itself, and we have found it sham and fictitious

throughout. And thus we see how impossible it is

that the apostles could have had any other object

in promulgating a new doctrine than their old one,

namely, that of ultimately obtaining power and

worldly advantages. For an intentional, deliberate

fabrication of a false occurrence, can only spring

from a preconceived resolve and from an object or

motive harboured in the mind. He who diligently

fabricates an untruth must have conceived a motive

for so doing before he can concoct anything that

will further his object ; and the more bold and im-

portant this fabrication is, the deeper must the

intention have been previously rooted in his mind,

and of the more vital consequence must it have

been to him. As, then, the new doctrine of the

apostles was an undoubted fabrication, they must

have invented it with a preconceived motive in

their mind and will. Now as the former motives

of the apostles, invariably and up to the time of

the fabrication, had been aimed at worldly wealth

and power, it follows with all moral certainty that

the possession of worldly wealth and power was

also the object of the apostles in the fabrication of

as

their new doctrine. Nor can we doubt that all the

circumstances attending their conduct will verify

this conclusion.

Section LIV.

After the death of Jesus, great anxiety and fear

prevailed among the disciples lest they should be

pursued and punished, because they had followed

a man who wanted to set himself up as a king, and

had incited the people to rebellion. And although

they pretended to be so brave, and to wish to share

danger and death with Jesus, yes, even to be ready

to fight with swords for him, they became cowards

from the moment they saw that he was taken and

likely to be condemned in earnest. " They all for-

sookhim and fled ; " and Peter who had summoned up

courage enough to look on firom a distance to see what

the end of the disturbance might be, denied his

master three times, and declared with an oath that

he knew him not and knew nothing about him, be-

cause, you see, matters were running quite con-

trary to the desired object. Their twelve seats

upon which they meant to sit and judge in the

kingdom of Jesus were all at once overturned, and

they no longer desired to sit at his right and at his

left!

The alarm of the apostles lasted for some time

after the death of Jesus. They left it to Joseph

and Nicodemus and the women to attend to his

burial, and kept away even from their last duties.

89

They assembled in secret places, locking the doors

for fear of the Jews, for their common wants and

interests made it advisable that they should hold

together and keep of the same mind. By-and-by,

one after another ventures abroad. They find that

no further judicial enquiry is being made concern-

ing them. They observe that the magistrates and

rulers, after the execution of Jesus as the principal

ofPender, consider his followers of little importance,

and trouble themselves no more about them;

per-

haps also could not take further steps before Pilate.

So they soon pluck up their courage, and begin to

think of da,ngers overcome and future prospects of

happiness. What was to be done ? If they returned

to their original occupations and trades, nothing

but poverty and disgrace awaited them. Poverty,

because they had forsaken all, particularly their

nets, ships, and other implements; and, besides, they

had grown out of the habit of working. And disgrace,

because they had experienced such a tremendous

downfall from their high and mighty expectations,

and by their adherence to Jesus had become so

familiar to all eyes, that everybody would have

jeered and pointed at the pretended judges of

Israel and intimate friends and ministers of the

Messiah, who now had again become poor fishermen

and perhaps even beggars. Both of these (poverty

and disgrace) being exactly the opposite of their

constant and long-cherished hopes were highly

irritating and repugnant. On the other hand, they

had imbibed, while with their master, a little fore-

90

taste of the importance to be gained hj preaching,

and had likewise ascertained that it was not an

unremnneratiye occupation. Jesus himself had

nothing. The oldest accounts of him state that he

maintained himself by some trade up to the time

of his ministry. Howeyer, in the thirtieth year of

his life, he lays his trade aside and begins to teach.

This would by no means necessitate want or star-

vation, although it did not promise a comfortable

income, which, indeed, was not customary with the

Jews, who would be all the more prodigal of cha-

ritable gifts. When he sojourned at Jerusalem a

friend was sure to invite him to be his guest. Fromthis also the saying arose that he was " a glutton

and a wine bibber, and consorted with publicans

and sinners." It is remarkable, too, that there

were many Marthas who put themselves to a vast

deal of trouble and pains to prepare delectable

dishes for him. When he travelled, he was accom-

panied by such benevolent women as Mary Magda-

lene, Joanna, the wife of Chusa, Herod's steward,

Susanna, and several others who ministered unto

him of their substance, as we are told by Luke

(viii. 1—3). He was, therefore, provided not only

with food, but also with money; and Judas, whocarried the purse, was the cashier who bought and

paid for everything requisite on the journey, and

rendered an account of the outlay.

Whenever Jesus had his meals, the disciples did

eat with him. Whenever Jesus travelled, their ex-

penses were paid out of the common purse, so that

91

the kind gifts wHch. were bestowed upon Jesus

during Ms ministry were sufficient for the mainte-

nance of at least thirteen people. And once, as

if to ascertain whether want could be felt in such a

course of life, some of the disciples were sent

abroad through all the towns of Judea to announce

the kingdom of God, without purse or scrip, and

when on their return they were asked whether they

had on any occasion suffered from hunger or want,

they answered that they had never experienced

either. The apostles then were very well aware

that preaching, and particularly announcing the

Messiah, would not do them any harm, and would

not reduce them to beggary. It was the same with

the honour and glory. They had seen that crowds

of people ran after Jesus to listen to his teaching.

They themselves had also been to some extent

honoured and looked up to by the multitude, be-

cause as they were the confidential disciples and

allowed to know more than others, their master

had drawn a line between them and the people.

They had also had a little foretaste of honour and

glory when they went about as ambassadors and

messengers of the Messiah, announcing the king-

dom of Heaven. Above all, they knew how much

influence a teacher could gain among the Jews,

because the Pharisees, who were the most important

and influential of the teachers, had substituted

many of their own laws and sayings for those of

the prophets, and had accustomed the people to

accept them blindly. Such influence and import-

92

ance migjtit rise considerably if at a time when pro-

phecies and miracles had ceased, some one were to

come forward and pretend to receive divine revela-

tions and perform miracles, and the highest flight

of all could be taken by one who turned to account

the universal expectation of a Messiah, whose

speedy return he would teach the people to look

for, and make them believe that he carried the

keys of the kingdom of Heaven. Such is human

nature ! He who can talk over people and lead

them to believe that he can show them the way to

everlasting bliss, a way that others do not know,

or from which all others are shut out, but also a

way that he can close as well as open, becomes

thereby master over all else that man holds dear;

over his thoughts, his freedom, his honour, and his

fortune, for everything sinks into insignificance

compared with this great and darling hope !

If we may be allowed to take a premonitory

glance at the after-conduct of the apostles, the

sequel shows that they really did tread in the paths

leading to influence and aggrandisement ; and

gleaned from them as much power over the

minds of ignorant people as they possibly could.

They write to them jointly, as well as in their

Council, dictating to all in the name of the

Holy Grhost not only what they are to believe, but

also what they are to do and what they are to

avoid, and what they are to eat and to drink. They

compel, they threaten, they give people over to

Satan; they appoint bishops, presidents, and elders

;

93

they force people to sell all their property and lay

the proceeds at their feet, so that those to whomthe lands belonged must henceforth be dependent

on their charity ; to say nothing of others who had

no possessions of the kind, and looked entirely to

the beneficent hands of the apostles for support.

Where they could not manage to introduce this

commonwealth, they knew how to urge the collec-

tion of alms with so much religious zeal, that it

was considered a small thing for any one to divide

his worldly wealth with those through whom he

had become a participator in heavenly and spiritual

wealth. The apostles, then, had learnt by the

little foretaste aforementioned, that by preaching

and announcement of the kingdom of the Messiah,

not only a sufficient maintenance, but also power,

honour, and glory were attainable. They also

possessed enough sense (as their future behaviour

shows) to turn all these things to the very best ad-

vantage. No wonder then that their courage did

not entirely leave them upon the first failure of

their hopes of worldly wealth and power in the

Messiah's kingdom, and that by a bold stroke they

succeeded in paving a new way to them.

Section LVI.

We have already remarked that at that time

some of the Jews, though very few, believed in a

twofold coming of the Messiah, who was first to

94

apj)ear suffering and in misery, and again in power

and glory. This belief exactly suited the purpose

of the apostles. They saw that the game was not

yet lost. The expectation of a future Messiah was

still universally cherished, and although the Jews

had been deceived in such persons as Theudas and

Judas Galilaeus, yet they never ceased to look for a

Messiah in others and after a different fashion, as is

shown by the later history of the Jews. The apos-

tles could also feel sure that a great many of those

who looked upon Jesus as a prophet, mighty in

words and deeds, would henceforth catch at this

doctrine, and would consider his suffering to have

been part of his ministry, and the consequence of

his first coming ; and would, therefore, believe and

expect his glorious second coming from Heaven to

be all the nearer at hand. Neither could they

doubt that many of the former adherents of Jesus,

from the same fear of poverty and disgrace which

had influenced themselves, would embark in the

same boat with them, and would gladly believe

whatever the apostles wished, so they could only

convince them that they had not been mistaken

and deceived. Behind locked doors, and so long as

they were unanimous as to their common anxiety,

they had good opportunities for deliberating and

consulting one with another as to the best method

of utilizing their idea to their own advantage.

Above all things, it was necessary to get rid of the

body of Jesus as speedily as possible, in order that

they might say he had arisen and ascended into

95

heaven, and would promptly return from thence

with great power and glory. This design of dis-

posing of the body of Jesus was easy to carry out.

It lay entombed in a rock situated in Joseph's

garden, Both the master and the gardener allowed

the apostles to visit the grave by day or by night.

They betray themselves by owning that anyone

might have secretly removed the body. Theybore the accusation made by the rulers and magis-

trates of having actually done it themselves bynight, and nowhere did they dare to contradict the

common report. In short, all circumstances com-

bine to show that they really did carry out their

undertaking, and added it later on to the founda-

tion-stone of their new doctrine. It appears in the

sequel, also, that they were not very long about

it, for they made away with the corpse in little

more than twenty-four hours, before corruption had

well set in ; and when it became known that the

body of Jesus was gone, they pretended to be full of

astonishment, and ignorant of any resurrection, and

proceeded with others to the Spot in order to survey

the empty tomb.* As yet, it was too soon to

* I cannot endorse this part of Eeimarus's theory. It seems

more reasonable, and does less violence to the narrative, to be-

lieve that Jesus never died on the cross, but was resuscitated by

the kind exertions of Joseph, and was enabled to escape from

the tomb in the disguise of the gardener's dress ; that he fled

awaj; into Galilee, and that the knowledge of his real survival

of the crucifixion animated the disciples to expect the return in

glory.

—

Editob.

96

make their assertion. They wait full fifty days

before they attempt it, so that by-and-by the time

might be past for an examination of the body, and

for requiring them to produce openly the Jesus

who had arisen. They wait fifty days that they

may be able the more confidently to insist that

they have seen him here and there, that he had

been with them, had spoken to them, had eaten

with them, and, lastly, had parted from them, and

had ascended into heaven that he might soon

return in glory.

Section LVII.

What chance of success could they promise them-

selves by such an undertaking ? Decidedly a good

one. No one could now accuse them manifestly of

fraud or falsehood. The corpus delicti was not to

be foimd, and even if anyone should come and

point out that it was somewhere to be found, more

than fifty days had passed over since the death of

Jesus, and decay must have done its work. Whowould be able to recognise him now, and say " This

is the body of Jesus " ? The lapse of time secured

them from detection, and made investigation useless.

It also helped them to tell crowds of people howoften and in what manifold ways he had appeared

to them in the meanwhUe, and what he had said

to them ; so that they could teach and arrange

whatever seemed most desirable, as though they

97

were doing it according to the sayings and com-

mands of Jesus, and if anyone after the fifty days

should happen to ask :" Where is this Jesus who

has arisen ? Shew him to me," the answer was

all ready : "He has now ascended into heaven."

All depended on showing a bold front, and in

affirming confidently that they had seen Jesus, had

spoken with him, felt him, eaten and walked with

him ; and in these declarations they were all una-

nimous.

Such evidence could not easily be rejected,

because truth, according to law, consisted in the

evidence of two or three witnesses, and here there

were eleven who stated one and the same thing.

The resurrection in itself was not incredible to tlie

greater mass, that is to say to the Pharisees; and

the people, who believed that others had been

raised from death by the prophets, consequently

were forced to allow the possibility of the resurrec-

tion of Jesus in accordance with their own doctrine.

The apostles, or rather Paul, as the cleverest of them,

knew how to turn this to account for his defence

and acquittal in a masterly style, when he stood

upon his trial before the council. In order to set

the Pharisees and Sadducees (who both sat in judg-

ment) together by the ears and thereby to escape,

he pretended at the time not to lay any particular

stress upon the resurrection of Jesus, but he dis-

torted the accusation brought against him, making

it appear as though it referred to a common dogma.

When he stood before the judges at Jerusalem

98

(Acts xxiii. 6) and '' Paul perceived that one part

were Sadducees and the other Pharisees, he cried

out in the council : Men and brethren, I am a Pha-

risee, the son of a Pharisee : of the hope and

resurrection of the dead I am called in question.

And when he had so said, there arose a dissension

between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the

multitude was divided. And the scribes that were

of the Pharisees' part arose and strove saying

:

We find no evil in this man : but if a spirit or an

angel hath spoken to him, let us not fight against

God." Paul speaks afterwards in the same manner

at C^sarea before the governor (Acts xxiv. 20)

:

" Let these same (Jews) here say, if they have

found any evil doing in me, while I stood before

the council except it be for this one voice, that I

cried standing among them : Touching the resur-

rection of the dead I am called in question byyou this day." He speaks again in the same waybefore King Agrippa, and rebukes the Jews in his

presence (Acts xxvi. 8) :" Why should it be

thought a thing incredible with you, that Grod

should raise the dead ? " What he meant was

:

" Why, it is your own confession of faith that there

is a resurrection of the dead ! There are examples

of it in the Scriptures." Paul knew how to catch

the Jews with their own dogmas ; and when he

comes upon the particular resurrection of Jesus,

he has recourse to a Batkol, a voice which hadcalled to him from Heaven. Now for such a

Batkol, at that time, all honour was felt, so they

99

were perforce bound to show it due respect :" If a

spirit or an angel hath, spoken to him, let us not

fight against Grod."

In a similar way the apostles often have recourse

to heavenly voices, the Holy Grhost, angels, visions,

ecstasies as high up as the third heaven, etc., when-

ever they want to give force to their pretences.

Those who still entertained regard and esteem

for the person of Jesus, and who had heard of his

many miracles, and of his having even re-awakened

people from death, were all the more ready to be-

lieve that he had himself arisen from the dead.

The apostles had besides learnt from their master

how to perform miracles, or rather how to give

the semblance of them to spectators, and I have

shown elsewhere that it requires no skill whatever

to relate miracles, or even to perform them, so

there be plenty of confederates to assist by dex-

terity of speech and hand, and where they have to

do with a people accustomed from youth up to

believe in miracles. The apostles took pains to

strengthen this readiness to believe, by recommend-

ing and urging the faith as an advantageous and

a saving one, and denouncing unbelief by damna-

tion. And when there was a question of proof,

they had Moses and all the prophets to back them;

for having acquired all the tricks of allegorical

adaptation, it was not difficult for them to find

passages applicable to Jesus as Messiah, to his

birth, to his flight into Egypt, his sojourn at Naza-

reth, his deeds, his miracles, his crucifixion, burial,

100

rosurrection, ascension, second coming, and, in

short, to anything else they wanted.

This Pharisaical art of reasoning was, in those

days, looked upon as displaying the greatest clever-

ness, the deepest science, and, in short, as irresis-

tible ; where conviction was lacking, the apostles

inclined people's minds to faith by the promise of

rich rewards on the speedy return of Jesus to his

glorious kingdom. For this kingdom, according to

the opinion of the Jews and early Christians, was

not to be merely an invisible kingdom of spiritual

wealth in Heaven, which probably would have

made less impression, but it was to be a visible

kingdom lasting a thousand years upon earth, in

which people were to eat and drink and live as

before, only everything was to be in profusion,

pleasure and happiness were to be boundless, and

all enemies conquered and kept in subjection.

Such promises could not fail to touch the senses.

Such bright representations dazzle the desires (and

thereby the mind) to such a degree, that people

utterly neglect and despise all investigation, all

searching after truth, and even present interests

in the lively hope of a future abundance of wealth

and happiness. In this way the apostles found

opportunities of persuading many to give up their

money and property to the common use for the

sake of the immense reward awaiting them here-

after. This was a savings-bank in which everyone

with whatever little fortune he possessed strove to

buy shares in the speedily expected kingdom of

101

Heaven ; and the division of these properties into

alms enabled the apostles not only to exchange

their poverty for affluence, but to allure to them

thousands of poor people by relieving their im-

mediate wants and promising them future plenty.

Section LVIII.

As the result shows that the apostles really did

make use of these means, and that the same were

successful in furthering their purposes, and as wehave seen from whence the apostles obtained sup-

plies to carry them out, there can be no doubt

whatever that they had foreseen, lovingly talked

over, and approved of these means in the days

when they were all so united and friendly together.

Did they then think that no difficulties would fall

in the way and hinder the execution of their plans ?

We may reasonably suppose that they did expect

difficulties to arise, but anyone who is acquainted

with the then existing condition of the Jewish

people will understand that such difficulties could

not have appeared so insurmountable but that they

might be vanquished by firmness and courage.

They began, then, by merely announcing the re-

surrection of Jesus from the dead ; a thing which

to the Romans appeared simply ridiculous, and had

no influence upon their government of the Jews.

To the Pharisaical Jews, however, it could not

appear so incredible, and at all events could not

102

now be rejected, because the contrary could not

possibly be manifestly shown after the body had

been made away with for fifty days, and also be-

cause the fact had been confirmed in a more than

legitimate manner, that is to say, by more than

three witnesses. The apostles knew that they

need have no fear of any regular and circumstantipJ

judicial examination at which the evidence of each

witness is taken upon oath, written down, and

afterwards compared, to find whether a contradic-

tion can be detected in one or more of the evi-

dences, or in any of the alleged connecting circum-

stances. No, everything at that time in Romanlaw courts, not to mention those of the Jews, was

carried on in a very tumultuous and superficial

manner. How to encounter deceit and error in

alleged facts by rational examination, was, as yet,

not understood. The history of the New Testa-

ment and that of the apostles show well enough

that such was the case when anyone stood before

the council. If the apostles had let fall anything

about the glorious second coming of Jesus to his

kingdom in the clouds of heaven, it would likewise

have been contemptuously regarded by the Romansand many Jews as a vain dream and a worthless

pretence, the falsity of which time would expose.

But should matters come to the worst, what had

the apostles to fear from the Jewish rulers ? TheJewish criminal court no longer existed. Therulers dared not put anyone to death ; that was the

affair of the Roman governor. The punishment of

103

flagellation might possibly be awarded to the apos-

tles, or they might be driven from the synagogue

and placed under the ban. That was all. They,

however, made up their minds to run this risk, and

their master having been forced to imdergo the

most humiliating of deaths by crucifixion, they

determined to regard the lesser disgrace as an

honour, and also prompted those who adopted the

Christian faith with this spirit of martyrdom.

However, as before said, the Jewish rulers could

not punish them very severely, for their authority

was quite brought down and public discipline was in

the greatest confusion ; and this indeed is very

evident from two occurrences related in the Acts

of the Apostles. When Paul was placed before the

high council (Acts xxiii. 2) and began to argue,

the high priest Ananias commanded that he should

be struck on the mouth, probably because he had

spoken without leave, which was considered un-

seemly in the accused, and also because he would

not remain silent after having been previously for-

bidden to speak. Paul, however, has the impu-

dence to rebuke and curse the high priest. Hesays : "God shall strike thee, thou whited wall, for

sittest thou to judge me after the law, and com-

mandest me to be smitten contrary to the law ?"

What could be more audacious than this be-

haviour towards the most influential judge in

the high council ? And yet, although he was

called to account for it, he was left unpunished.

His apology, " I wist not, brethren, that it was

104

the high priest, for it is written, Thou shalt not

speak evil of the ruler of thy people," would not

have saved him. The excuse was a lame one, for

the high priest could not have been so unknown to

him, and if he did not recognise him as such, he

must have known that he was a judge, who, belong-

ing to the high council, must necessarily be a

person of distinction, and, therefore, also his ruler,

and here his judge. Was he then to be allowed,

with the exception of the high priest, to curse any

other members of the high council ? He says him-

self :" It is written, Thou shalt not speak evil of the

ruler of thy people." Was not then every judge

and member of that council a ruler of the Jewisli

people ? Does not Paul smite himself with his

own words ? But as I said before, it was not his

apology that obtained his freedom, but the weak-

ness of the Jewish Synhedrion, and the small influ-

ence of all the magistracy, who, during the Romandominion, dared not take a few abusive words too

precisely. Paul was as well aware of this weak-

ness as he was of their private disagreements and

quarrels, for the council was composed of Pharisees

and Sadducees, and in consequence the judges

often differed in opinion and split into opposite

parties, the end of which was that they let the

accused go free. As then Paul knew that the Sad-

ducees denied the resurrection of the dead, and that

the Pharisees upheld it, he played the " divide."

He took the side of the Pharisees :" I am a Pha-

risee, the son of a Pharisee ; of the hope and resur-

105

rection of the dead I am called in question." Anuproar and a quarrelling immediately ensues among

the judges themselves, the Pharisees take his part,

they pronounce him innocent, and Paul's impeach-

ment falls to the ground. So Paul laughs in his

sleeve at the impotent Jewish council, and feels

pretty confident that it can do him no great harm.

Even when these religious dissensions were brought

before the Roman council, verdict was always

given in favour of the accused, for the Romans

either looked upon them as senseless brawls, and

neither could nor would judge their private sects

and heretics; or, as on many accounts one must

conclude, they encouraged these divisions and

bickerings among the Jews, seeking thereby to

bring the power and influence of their magistracy

lower and lower down, in order to give themselves

a better opportunity of ultimately bringing the

people entirely under their yoke, which, indeed,

they soon afterwards succeeded in accomplishing.

Section LIX.

Civil discipKne was also at that time in a very bad

state among the Jews. People could do almost what

they liked without fear of punishment. I do not,

however, mean to imply that the apostles escaped

censure in introducing this community of property,

for such a state of things must necessarily be dis-

106

advantageous to the prosperity of a nation. Those

citizens who are in easy circumstances, and who sell

all their goods and chattels, lands and houses, to

place the money they realize into a common bank,

are thereby withdrawn from the State. They be-

come poor, and cannot in any way help to support

the universal burdens, or assist in furthering the

growth of the State by business and trade. Private

persons become lords and masters of all the wealth

in which the treasury and universal affairs have a

just participation and claim, and these people are

thus enabled to draw towards them thousands of

other citizens, who henceforth become dependent

upon them and are obliged to follow the beck and

call of their leaders and benefactors ; also, by

being deprived of dominion and obedience to the

magistracy and rulers, they are even placed in

opposition to the latter. However, I will not de-

mand from the Jewish polity the prevention of

such injury to . the public good. The apostles felt

themselves at liberty to utilize this carelessness and

confusion, and in the midst of one State began to

erect another State, in which religion and opinion,

possessions and their appropriation, and conse-

quently the behaviour of their adherents no longer

depended upon the injunction or prohibition of

the laws, but upon the beck and call of the

apostles, and by them was used against the injunc-

tion or prohibition of the laws, under the pretext

that one must obey the law of God before the law

of man. It certainly is most astonishing that at

107

the veiy commencement of this apostolic institu-

tion, two persons lost their lives one after the other

in the chamber of the apostles, from whence they

were carried out dead, and that no judicial enquiry

or examination ensued as to why and by what

means these two persons met with their death, for

such an event must of necessity have aroused sus-

picion. In Acts V. 1, Ananias and Sapphira agree

to take shares in the apostolic bank. They resolve

with the foreknowledge of the apostles to follow

the example of others and sell their possessions.

This of itself was a thing contrary to the law of

Moses, and by which the apostles had upset the

entire constitution ofthe Jewish polity, for, according

to the command of Moses, each person was to retain

in his possession the inheritance of his fathers.

These two persons must have observed that

when once others had been deprived of their pro-

perty, means of subsistence were rather sparingly

forthcoming. For this reason they persuade them-

selves not to give up the whole of their paternal

inheritance, but to reserve a portion of it in case of

need. The Holy Ghost was not wanted here to

tell Peter how much they had received for their

lands, for he knew the value and the price of them.

He asks, How much money? counts up the sum

Ananias has brought, and as he perceives that part

of it is missing, he is dissatisfied, he must have it

all. He calls Ananias to account, assumes an air

of great importance, as though it were one and the

same thing to lie to Mm as to lie to the Holy

108

Ghost. In short, the man falls down, Grod knows

how, dead upon the ground. People are called in

who lift him up, receive orders to carry him out

and bury him immediately, and in three hours the

whole business is accomplished. Meanwhile, the

wife Sapphira appears before the apostles, and is

likewise asked whether the lands have not produced

more, and when she denies having received a larger

sum, the same fate awaits her. She falls down

dead, is carried out and buried with her husband.

I will not enquire what became of the money laid

at the apostles' feet, for although it was not the

whole fortune of Ananias and Sapphira, it is very

apparent that the apostles did not restore it to the

heirs, but considered it a good prize and kept it.

How is it possible in a town or State possessing anj-

sort of law or order that two well-known persons,

a man and his wife, should die in a room in broad

daylight, be put out of the way, and buried in two

or three hours without any enquiry being made as

to the manner by which they lost their lives ?

Could this happen without presentiment, without

collusion, without painful examination on the part

of those present ? In so disorganised a state of

affairs, what might not the apostles venture to un-

dertake and to do ?

Section LX.

It is evident from the above that the apostles

had no cause to fear that any great difficulties

109

would present themselves in their way. We will

see how they really went to work. After all had

been unanimously pre-arranged by those most in-

fluential among them, they assembled about a

hundred and twenty of the remaining disciples

(Acts ii, I), some of whom probably honestly

imagined that Jesus really had arisen from the dead,

and had been seen by the others. In the place of

Judas another apostle was ordained, and eventually,

on the fiftieth day after Easter, the first outbreak

of their intention took place with a miracle in

which four other miracles are remarkable. 1st. Asound as of a rushing mighty wind, which filled

all the house. 2nd. The appearance on the apos-

tles of cloven tongues like as of fire. 3rd. That" It (the wind, I suppose) sat upon each of them."

4th. That they began to speak with other tongues

;

so that Parthians, Medes, Elamites, Mesopota-

mians, Jews, Cappadocians, Pontians, Asiatics,

Phrygians, Pamphylians, Egyptians, Lybians, Cyrc-

nians, Romans, strange Jews, Cretes, and Arabians,

all these heard the apostles speak and praise Godin their own language. Upon which "they were

amazed and marvelled," saying one to another :

" What is the meaning of this?" Others mocking

said :" These men are full of new wine." So it

goes on until Peter gets up and produces evidence

from Joel, showing that " this miracle shoiild come

to pass in the last days," and further evidence from

the Psalms showing that Jesus must have arisen,

because David said :" Thou wilt not suffer thy

110

Holy one to see corruption." And after this,

"they that gladly accepted the word were bap-

tized, and the same day were added unto them about

three thousand souls." Now if the object of God was

to make the resurrection clear and credible to man,

why should he have shown Jesus after his resur-

rection to no other men than the apostles, and

afterwards, when he was no longer extant, an-

nounce the resurrection by a miracle ? Would not

the resurrection have been believed quite naturally

and with universal approbation without any mira-

cle, if Grod had, after the crucifixion and burial,

allowed Jesus to be seen and touched alive in the

Temple before the Synhedrion, and before the eyes

of all the people ?

To reject an easy, natural, and powerful method

for an unnatural, incomprehensible, and round-

about method, is not consistent with the wisdom

of Grod, Miracles shown forth in such a manner

are extremely suspicious. Men who would estab-

lish by miracles a thing which, if clear and true,

they could and ought manifestly and visibly to

prove, invariably seek to work upon the credulity

of ignorant or weak-minded people, who are most

easily caught by what is most incomprehensible to

them. We will now look a little closer into this

great miracle. I do not know whether Luke, whorelates it, was himself present on the occasion, but

whether he was or not, it is to be regretted that he

has not detailed in a more intelligible manner howsuch impossible things came to pass. We need not

Ill

waste time over tlie " sound as of a mighty rushing

wind," because a noise of that kind is so very

easily produced; but who can comprehend what

Luke means by saying that the tongues seen among

the apostles were cloven like the flames of fire ?

The word tongue cannot here, as it does elsewhere,

mean language, because we cannot see language;

besides, it would not correspond with the descrip-

•tion of these cloven tongues like forked flames of

fire in the shape of tongues. Could they have

been the tongues of the apostles themselves?

They might possibly have shot them forth from

their throats with such force and speed as to re-

semble the cloven tongue of a serpent, and during

the protusion might also have had a fiery appear-

ance ; or could they have been strange tongues, the

shape and colour of which were seen upon the

apostles ? And whereabouts were they seen ?—over

their heads, as they are commonly represented in

pictures, or shooting forth like flames from their

mouths, as is more likely to have been the case ?

And who and what placed the tongues upon each

of the apostles ? Was it the wind ? For nothing

else is mentioned as having done so. The whole

description, unlike that of a true history, is morethat of a prophetic vision intended to represent

the prompting of foreign languages by the HolyGhost. The mighty wind represents the Holy Grhost

blowing into the apostles and kindling a blazing

fire which shoots forth in forked flames from

their mouths, signifying the gift of various foreign

112

languages. It is a good picture of the imaginary-

vision of a prophetic writer, but we cannot by any-

possible means make it rhyme with a true history.

And why should some of those present have

mocked at the apostles, and supposed them to be

drunken with wine if these miraculous tongues

were indeed visible to the spectators ? The thing

contradicts itself. Let the mockery of men go as

far as it will, such a visible supernatural event

could not have failed to produce universal dismay,

amazement, and terror. It certainly would not

have given rise to any mockery. Mockery soon

stops if one sees clearly a marvellous thing which

cannot be mistaken for delusion or imposition.

This first miracle then would appear to have been

concocted for the purpose by Luke with little

imagination and less forethought; and this very

mockery, coming from the hearers and spectators,

shows us sufficiently that whatever they really did

see and hear, must have had every appearance of

juggling and deception. Otherwise, why should

they have mocked and said that the apostles were,

full of new wine ? If the apostles had spoken one

after another rationally, distinctly, and decently,

like reasonable, well-conducted, sober men, this

mockery could not have taken place. - "We must,

therefore, conclude that to all outward appearance

they did behave like intoxicated men. That is to

say, that they spake and shouted confusedly one

amid the other, as drunkards are apt to do, and at

the same time made extravagant gestures such as

113

drunkards are apt to make. It is easy to see that

the apostles put on a prophetic enthusiasm in which

people feign to rave and to be mad, for in " Hith

nabbe," to prophecy and to be mad are expressed

by the same word. Further, it is easy to see that

in their feigned enthusiasm they all shouted at the

same time in a loud voice and in confusion certain

strange syllables and words, so that any credulous

person in the tumult and in the babel of sounds

might easily fancy he recognised his own or any

other language.

This perfectly accounts for the mockery upon

which Paul also throws much light in an epistle to

the Corinthians (1 Cor. xiv.) when he has not the

courage utterly to forbid the speaking with tongues,

as such a command would have been equivalent to

accusing the apostles—with all their miraculous

Corinthian gifts—of juggling and imposition, but,

nevertheless, he gives them to understand that he

deems it advisable to refrain from speaking in

"unknown tongues which no man understandeth,

and which, except they be interpreted, are not

edifying to the Church." For it appears that some

members of the Church had endeavoured to make

themselves conspicuous by this miraculous gift of

tongues, and in a fit of inspiration had given vent

to meaningless and extraordinary sounds, by which

the ignorant might imagine them to be speaking

in foreign languages. It is also possible that their

imagination became so excited, that in a sort of

ecstasy they gave utterance to these strange sounds,

114

for of such ecstasies there are numerous examples.

At all events, we may be sure that they (the sounds)

did not proceed from Grod, or from the Spirit of

God, who would certainly not waste his knowledge

of tongues where it would not be edifying, and

where Paul saw reason to find fault with it. Let

us, however, imagine what (on account of the

feigned inspiration and the mockery it occasioned)

I cannot believe, namely, that the apostles did in

an intelligible, orderly manner, one after the other,

utter divers sentences in foreign tongues.

Would it not have been perfectly possible that

some of them, in their intercourse with so manypeople of different nations, had become famihar

with such sentences, or had taken pains to acquire

such sentences or words to help them in carrying

out their intentions ? Where is the great miracle

in this ? And how bad the argument :

—

Certain persons have spoken in foreign tongues

;

Therefore Jesus has arisen from the dead.

" That is all very well," we shall be answered,

"but such tongues! tongues so numerous and so

little known ! These Parthians, Modes, Elamites,

Cretes, Arabians, Cappadocians, Asiatics, and so

forth, all understood the apostles, and heard them

praise God each in his own language, and there-

upon three thousand souls were baptised and added

to the Christian Church. Certainly there could

have been no deception in this ! A strong impres-

sion must have been produced upon all by such an

115

immense conversion, except upon the mockers who

did not understand it."

But Luke here forgets that he has represented

the apostles as sitting in a room. He says at the

beginning of his recital :" And suddenly there

came a sound as of a mighty rushing wind, which

filled all the house in which they sat " (Acts ii. 2).

It was the custom of the apostles to assemble in the

upper chamber of the house eV t£ vvepaxo^ imme-

diately under the flat roof. My gracious !* How

could upwards of three thousand people have found

room there ? For these three thousand do not con-

stitute all the persons present. The three thousand

were those who "gladly accepted his word and

were baptized " (v. 41), so there must have been

others who did not accept the word of Peter, and

besides these the assembled company numbered a

hundred and twenty (Acts i. 15). So we mayreckon that there were altogether about four thou-

sand people. Such a number would require a large

church. How does Luke contrive to cram them all

into this one chamber of the apostles ? I would

willingly help him out of the difficulty by suggest-

ing that perhaps the greater number of people

might have been outside in the street or in the

* I am at a loss for an interjectioa here. The literal trans-

lation of the word Eeimarus uses:—"Main!" -would be

"mine!" or "my!" It is an exclamation which a German

child would make on hearing the wonders of a fairy tale, and

is peculiar to Eeimarus in his quaint style of writing.

—

Trans-

LATOB.

116

courtyard. But my suggestion would remove all

cause for the conversion. How could people who

stood in the street or in the courtyard, looking up

at the room, see, hear, and know what miraculous

things were going on up there, what languages

were being spoken, or what the meaning of the

speeches was ? Yet Luke introduces them as saying:

"Are not all these which speak Gralilseans? and howhear we every man in our own tongue wherein wewere born ?" (Acts ii. 7, 8.) No, I cannot help Luke.

He has forgotten what he has written, and to makethe conversion appear as important as possible,

he states the number of converted to have been

over three thousand, and it never occurs to him

that he has seated his apostles in a chamber. It is

immaterial to him how these three or four thou-

sand people are to find standing-room ! And howwill he convince us that three to four thousand

people could congregate immediately upon a mighty

wind ? For even if the wind had made itself heard

with a "mighty rushing sound" through the

whole town, there was no reason why the inhabi-

tants should be very much surprised at it, or whythey should run off to one particular house in the

town. If, on the other hand, this mighty windonly sounded in this one particular house, howcould so many thousand people, some of them at

the uttermost ends of the town, Parthians, Modes,

Elamites, Cretes, Arabians, Phrygians, Cappado-

cians, etc., have known that it sounded ? This is

past all comprehension. Besides, the assembled

117

congregation is supposed to consist of devout men,

Jews and comrades of Jews. How comes it that

on the first day of Pentecost instead of hastening,

as devout men would, to the Temple or the syna-

gogue, they hurry, out of sheer curiosity, from the

most distant quarters of the town to a house in or

over which a mighty wind has been heard to sound?

There is no rhyme in this.

Events follow with such marvellous speed one

upon the other throughout Luke's history, that it

would seem as though everything were influenced

by the wind. " When this was noised abroad the

multitude came together." It is also remarkable

that this multitude of people in Jerusalem are not

native Jews ; on the contrary, they are strange

Jews of every nation under heaven, fifteen of

which are mentioned;

just as if these had pre-

viously and expressly been summoned to become

aural witnesses of the new " polyglotta," and just

as if the native Jews had not been invited. But

as, in this instance, the news came to the people's

ears accidentally, and as out of about one thousand

Jews who came from Palestine to the feast of Pente-

cost at Jerusalem, none could justly be called

strange Jews, there could not at most have been

more than three or four strangers among a number

of three or four thousand casually congregated

people. How is it then here that to one native

Jew there are fourteen strange Jews, in the enume-

rating of whom Luke is obKged to exhaust all his

geography ? This is hard to believe. It behoves a

118

writerwho relates a miraculous event before all things

to explain clearly the possibility of a thing which

in itself appears incredible, but here one not only

sees that the seyeral occurrences recorded could not

have taken place, but one also sees clearly and

distinctly by all the circumstances combined that

the story is self-refating. Thus it is with all these

miracles. Nothing is easier for the writer than to

imagine them. It is no more trouble to him to put

down three thousand than three hundred, his pen

governs and orders all nature, he makes the wind

to sound when and where he lists, he confounds

languages, and in the space of a moment assembles

a multitude of every nation under the sun. But

here and there the confusion of his imagination will

peep out, entangling itself hopelessly in contradic-

tions. Such tales can only be believed blindfold

by a sanctimonious simplicity. To a healthy mind

they are a mockery and a laughing-stock.* Andalthough Luke imagined thirty years afterwards,

when the age allotted to man was well nigh spent,

that he could with impunity write miracles and un-

scrupulously circulate them in the world, there

were then, as there are now, some sensible people

who could perceive imposition and falsehood in all

their nooks and crannies, and who readily knewhow to distinguish them from the truth. I shall

pass over the rest of the miracles as unworthy of

notice ; it is probably sufiScient for my readers, as

* Or, sound reason laughs them to scorn.

119

it is for myself, to have found that such is the case

by our investigation of this first miracle. We now

know how much truth it contains. Doubtless a

good many may be deducted from the three thou-

sand who so speedily adapted themselves to the

baptism and beKef in Jesus ; and the motive which

swayed the remainder was not the miracle, but the

sweet prospect of enjoying the common wealth

which was being so liberally distributed to all that

they eat and drank together, and wanted for no-

thing, as we see by the following (v. 42—45) : "Andthey continued stedfastly in the apostles' doctrine

and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in

prayers .... and all that believed were together

and had all things in common ; and sold their pos-

sessions and goods, and parted them to all men as

they had need Neither was there any

among them that lacked : for as many as were

possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought

the prices of the things that were sold, and laid

them down at the apostles' feet : and distribution

was made unto every man as he had need." (Acts

iv. 34, 35.)

Behold the real reason of the conflux ! a reason

which operates and has operated at all times so

•naturally, that we need no miracle to make every-

thing comprehensible and clear. This is the

real mighty wind that so quickly wafted all the

people together. This is the true original language

that performs the miracles.

LONDON" :

WERTHEIMEK, LEA AND CO ,FEINTI.R3

FINSEUKY OIRCUS.